UC-NRLF 

IIPII 


33 


CD 
O 


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200  EGGS  A  YEAR 

PER  HEN: 


How  To  GET  THEM 


Pric^e  ,56  ; Cents. 

jtr~"  -._t.-.    

PUBLISHED   BY 

fl)GAR  WARRElCHamptbi*,  N\ 
I9O4. 


Standards  of  Perfection. 

Old 
Homestead 

Incubators  and  Brooders. 


Practical  Machines  for  Practical  People 


Why?? 


BROODERS. 

Open  Hover — large  floor  space — no  heat  drum  in 
center — therefore  easily  cleaned — chicks  do  not 
huddle — all  seen  at  once  by  opening  door — full 
rated  capacity — aluminum  lamp — never  gets  hot — 
sweats  oil — or  rusts. 

INCUBATORS. 

An  incubator  in  an  incubator — therefore  unaffected 
by  changes  of  outside  temperature — perfect  regula** 
tion — cannot  be  overheated — ventilation  positive, 
but  controlled — egg  chamber  surrounded  with  a 
moving  current  of  warm  air — In  fact  the  only 
up-to-date  incubator. 

Catalogue  free. 

OLD  HOMESTEAD 
BROODER  CO., 

Vine  Street 
MIDDLEBORO,  MASS. 


FOURTH    EDITION. 


200  Eggs  a  Year  Per  Hen: 
How  to  Get  Them. 


A  Practical  Treatise 


on 


Egg  Making  and  Its  Conditions 


and 


Profits  in  Poultry, 


Price  50  Cents. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

EDGAR  WARREN,  Hampton,  N.  H. 
1904. 


w . 


COPYRIGHT  1899,  1900,  1902, 

BY  EDGAR  L.   WARREN. 


CHAPTER   I. 


THE  TWO  HUNDRED  EGG  HEN. 


We  hear  a  good  deal  said  in  these  days  about  the  200  egg- 
hen.  Some  are  disposed  to  deny  her  existence,  and  to  class  her 
with  such  fabulous  or  semi-fabulous  birds  as  the  phoenix  and 
•dodo.  Others  admit  that  she  has  appeared  in  isolated  instances, 
but  is  by  no  means  common.  Others  contend  that  if  she  should 
appear  in  large  numbers  it  would  be  a  misfortune  rather 
than  otherwise,  for  such  excessive  egg  production  would  weaken 
her  system  so  that  her  eggs  would  not  hatch  healthy  and  vigorous 
chicks;  and  the  200  egg  hen  would  be  in  constant  danger  of 
-extinction  from  her  own  success. 

One  thing  is  certain,  however,  the  200  egg  hen  is  no  myth. 
There  are  many  of  them  scattered  about,  and  the  tribe  is  on  the 
increase.  My  reputation  for  truth  and  veracity  is  reasonably 
good;  yet  I  am  wjlling  to  make  oath  that  I  had  a  flock  of  14 
White  Wyandottes  that  from  October  to  October  gave  me  a  total 
of  2999  eggs,  an  average  of  a  little  better  than  214  eggs  apiece. 
There  are  others  who  can  beat  this.  Men  are  already  talking  of 
the  250  egg  hen,  and  before  we  realize  it  she  v/ill  be  here. 

I  do  not  see  how  a  man  can  draw  an  arbitrary  line,  and  say 
how  many  eggs  a  hen  may  or  may  not  lay  in  a  year.  The  hen  in 
her  wild  state  lays  from  six  to  ten ;  the  average  farmer's  hen  not 
over  TOO;  while  on  egg  farms  the  average  is  raised  to  150.  But 
why  stop  here  ?  There  are  365  days  in  a  year ;  and  I  do  not  see 
why  a  pullet  that  is  fully  matured,  that  comes  from  an  egg  pro- 
ducing strain,  that  is  properly  fed  and  cared  for  and  kept  steadily 
at  work,  may  not  lay  at  least  200  eggs  in  that  time. 

I  am  prepared  to  admit  that  a  hen  will  not  lay  200  eggs  a  year 
without  constant  and  intelligent  care.  I  am  also  prepared  to 
admit  that  in  some  cases  the  number  of  eggs  extra  a  hen  will  lay 
where  she  has  this  constant  and  intelligent  care  will  not  pay  for  the 
time  consumed,  and  that  it  may  be  more  profitable  to  get  an  aver- 
age of  say  150  eggs  a  year  than  a  larger  number.  But  I  believe 
that  in  the  poultry  business,  as  in  every  other,  it  is  well  to  have  a 
high  ideal.  The  man  who  inscribes  on  his  banner,  "Two  Hun- 
dred Eggs  a  Year  Per  Hen,"  and  then  comes  as  near  it  as  he 
can,  will  make  more  money  and  have  more  fun  than  will  the  man 
who  is  content  to  take  what  comes  along. 


THE  HEREDITY  OF  THE  TWO  HUNDRED  EGG  HEN. 

When  I  was  a  boy  a  mile  in  2:40  was  regarded  as  a  great 
performance  for  a  trotting  horse.  There  were  horses  that  had 
trotted  under  2:40,  much  under,  but  they  were  few.  I  remember 
it  was  the  custom  for  us  urchins  to  cry  out  whenever  a  man  drove 
by  at  a  slashing  gait,  "Go  it,  two-forty !"  I  am  not  an  old  man 
yet  by  any  means — my  wrife  tells  me  that  I  am  young — but  I  have 
lived  to  see  the  trotting  record  come  down  and  down  until  it  has 
dropped  below  the  two  minute  mark.  A  horse  that  cannot  trot 
in  less  than  2:40  is  regarded  as  a  good  horse  for  a  woman  to 
drive,  but  .out  of  place  on  the  track. 

What  has  brought  the  record  down  and  down  until  men  are 
looking  for  the  two  minute  horse?  Heredity  and  handling! 
A  trotting  horse  now  has  a  pedigree  as  long  as  a  European 
monarch.  The  blood  of  generations  of  trotters  flows  in  his  veins. 
It  may  be  the  ancestral  lines  converge  in  the  great  Messenger 
himself. 

Heredity  and  handling !  These  two  things  are  as  necessary 
for  the  200  egg  hen  as  for  the  two  minute  horse.  Men  clo  not 
gather  grapes  from  thorns  nor  figs  from  thistles.  The  200  egg 
hen  must  be  bred  to  lay.  She  must  come  from  an  egg-producing 
strain.  No  matter  how  scientifically  a  man  may  feed  or  how 
hygienically  he  may  house,  he  cannot  take  a  flock  of  hens  of  any 
old  breed  or  no  breed  and  get  200  eggs  a  year  apiece  from  them. 
It  is  impossible.  By  carefully  following  the  instructions  of  this 
book  he  can  largely  increase  the  egg  yield  of  such  a  flock,  but  he 
must  not  expect  to  get  200  eggs  a  year  apiece.  I  cannot  impress 
it  too  strongly  upon  the  reader's  mind  that  if  he  expects  to  get 
200  eggs  a  year  apiece  from  his  hens  he  must  start  in  with  a  great 
laying  strain. 

WHAT   BREED   IS    BEST? 

There  is  an  old  Latin  proverb,  De  gustibus  non  est  disputan- 
dum,  which  I  will  take  the  liberty  to  translate  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  have  been  out  of  school  for  some  time.  Its  meaning  is 
this :  In  matters  of  taste  there  is  no  argument.  This  is  as  true 
in  the  poultry  business  as  it  is  elsewhere.  Other  things  being 
equal  that  breed  is  the  best  for  a  man  which  he  likes  best.  There 
is  no  breed  that  combines  all  the  excellences  and  has  none  of  the 
defects.  There  is  no  breed  that  does  not  have  its  admirers.  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  the  most  profitable  breeds  are  to  be 


found  in  the  Asiatic,  American  and  Mediterranean  classes,  as  fol- 
lows :  In  the  Asiatic  class  the  Light  Brahmas,  Black  Langshans, 
Buff  and  Partridge  Cochins;  in  the  American  class  the  Barred, 
Buff  and  White  Plymouth  Rocks,  all  the  Wyandottes  and  the 
Rhode  Island  Reds;  in  the  Mediterranean  class  the  Black 
Minorcas,  Brown,  White  and  Buff  Leghorns.  These  are  the 
great  money-making  varieties.  The  Asiatics  are  excellent  table 
fowls  and  prolific  layers  of  dark  brown  eggs.  They  are  good 
sitters  and  mothers,  although  somewhat  clumsy.  They  are 
inclined  to  be  sluggish  and  readily  take  on  fat.  They  stand  cold 
well,  and  make  good  winter  layers.  The  Mediterraneans  are  egg 
machines,  turning  out  great  quantities  of  white-shelled  eggs. 
They  do  not  stand  cold  as  well  as  the  Asiatic  and  American 
breeds,  and  are  not  as  good  fowls  for  the  table.  The  Americans 
on  the  whole  are  the  favorites.  They  are  all-round  birds,  good 
layers  of  brown  eggs,  excellent  for  the  table,  good  sitters  and 
mothers.  They  stand  cold  well,  and  are  the  birds  for  farmers 
and  breeders.  The  danger  with  every  breed  is  that  it  will  get 
into  the  hands  of  the  fanciers  and  be  bred  for  points  rather  than 
for  utility.  Stamina  is  the  important  thing,  and  not  the  show 
card.  It  will  be  a  great  day  for  the  poultry  business  when  far- 
mers keep  more  pure-bred  fowls,  for  then  the  great  standard 
varieties  may  be  kept  up  without  danger  of  deterioration. 

HOW  MANY  VARIETIES  SHALL  I  KEEP? 
After  studying  the  matter  carefully,  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  is  better  for  the  average  poultryman  to  confine 
himself  to  one  variety.  He  will  get  better  results  and  make  more 
money  if  he  concentrates  his  energies  than  he  will  if  he  dissipates 
them.  After  a  man  has  made  a  success  with  one  variety  he  may 
perhaps  add  another,  and  even  a  third;  but  the  best  poultrymen 
do  not  handle  many  varieties,  and  some  of  the  most  successful 
confine  themselves  to  one.  Where  several  varieties  are  kept  I 
would  suggest  that  there  be  some  principle  of  unity  determining 
the  choice.  Let  the  birds  all  be  of  one  color — say  white,  black 
or  buff — or  let  them  all  be  of  one  family  like  the  Leghorns, 
Wyandottes  or  Plymouth  Rocks.  Where  the  fowls  are  all  of  one 
family  they  will  have  the  same  characteristics  and  respond  to  the 
same  treatment.  In  case  of  an  accidental  mix-up  the  damage  is 
reduced  to  a  minimum,  for  the  birds  are  all  of  the  same  size, 
comb  and  contour. 


6 

HOW  MANY  RECORDS  ARE  WRECKED. 

Some  time  ago  I  received  a  letter  from  a  young  lady  who 
is  an  enthusiastic  poultrywoman,  in  which  she  said  that  she  was 
getting  a  goodly  number  of  eggs,  but  that  her  record  was  lowered 
because  she  had  kept  over  half  a  dozen  hens  which  had  laid  well 
the  year  before.  She  said  that  she  knew  better,  but  could  not 
resist  the  temptation.  I  mention  this  case  because  it  is  so  typical. 
More  egg  records  are  wrecked  by  keeping  old  hens  in  the  flock 
than  in  any  other  way!  There  is  always  a  temptation  when  a 
hen  has  laid  well  to  keep  her  the  second  year.  This  temptation 
must  be  resisted  if  one  is  in  quest  of  a  big  egg  record.  The  fact 
that  a  hen  has  laid  well  for  one  year  since  coming  to  maturity 
incapacitates  her  from  ever  laying  so  well  again.  She  has 
drained  her  system,  and  requires  recuperation  before  she  can  lay 
even  moderately.  You  may  set  it  down  as  an  axiom  that  it  is 
the  pullets  that  give  the  big  egg  records.  If  you  have  in  your 
flock  some  hens  that  you  desire  to  keep  a  second  year  as  a  reward 
for  past  services,  or  for  breeders  and  mothers,  put  them  in  a  pen 
by  themselves  and  do  not  look  for  more  than  a  moderate  egg  pro- 
duction from  them.  It  is  the  pullets  that  lay,  and  the  early- 
hatched  pullets  at  that.  Get  out  your  chickens  in  March,  April 
or  May,  according  to  the  breed,  if  you  want  winter  layers. 

WEED   OUT   THE   NON-LAYERS. 

Reports  from  the  Maine  Experiment  Station,  where  trap 
nests  are  used  and  individual  records  kept,  show  that  among  hens 
of  the  same  breed  and  kept  under  the  same  conditions  there  is  a 
great  difference  in  egg  production.  One  Barred  Plymouth  Rock 
laid  251  eggs  in  one  year,  while  another  in  the  same  flock  laid  but 
eight.  A  White  Wyandotte  pullet  laid  219  eggs,  while 
another  of  the  same  breed  laid  absolutely  none.  These 
figures  are  most  significant,  showing  as  they  do  the 
absolute  necessity  of  weeding  out  the  non-producers.  Suppose 
you  have  two  hens  in  a  pen,  and  one  lays  200  eggs  a  year  and  the 
other  none.  The  average  for  the  two  is  100  eggs  apiece.  In 
other  words,  the  non-layer  has  reduced  the  pen  record  one-half. 
It  costs  a  dollar  a  year  to  feed  a  hen,  and  this  money  is  thrown 
away  if  the  hen  does  not  lay.  The  one  absolutely  sure  way  of 
identifying  the  layers  and  non-layers  is  by  the  use  of  the  trap 
nest ;  but  this  takes  time,  and  many  do  not  feel  that  it  pays.  Still 


without  the  use  of  the  trap  nest,  by  keeping  one's  eyes  and  ears 
open,  one  can  pick  out  the  layers  with  sufficient  accuracy  for  all 
practical  purposes,  as  I  shall  show  before  I  get  through. 

THE    THREE    CONDITIONS    OF    EGG    PRODUCTION. 

It  was  a  maxim  of  Lord  Bacon,  one  of  the  greatest  men  that 
ever  lived,  that  Nature  is  the  great  teacher,  and  that  in  order  to 
learn  we  must  interrogate  Nature.  If  we  study  Nature  with  open 
eyes  she  will  often  give  us  suggestions  of  great  value  and  fruit- 
fulness.  The  poultryman  must  continually  go  to  Nature,  the 
great  teacher,  and  he  will  not  go  in  vain.  In  the  state  of  Nature 
in  which  wild  fowls  live,  or  in  the  state  of  semi-Nature  in  which 
the  farmer's  fowls  are  kept,  what  is  the  season  of  egg  produc- 
tion? Summer.  Why?  Because  in  summer  the  conditions  of 
egg  production  are  present.  What  are  these  conditions? 
Warmth,  proper  food  and  exercise.  Reproduce  these  conditions 
at  any  season  of  the  year  and  the  fowl  will  be  likely  to  lay.  The 
poultryman  should  keep  this  fact  in  mind  and  govern  himself 
accordingly. 

IS    THERE   AN   EGG   TYPE? 

Before  I  pass  to  the  next  chapter  I  wish  to  take  up  a  subject 
upon  which  there  is  a  wide  difference  of  opinion — Is  there  an  egg 
type?  Some  of  those  who  ought  to  know  claim  there  is  not. 
But  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  as  there  is  a  type  of  cow  that  we 
associate  with  large  production  of  milk,  so  there  is  a  type  of  hen 
that  we  may  associate  with  large  production  cf  eggs.  I  believe 
that  a  hen  with  a  broad  breast,  a  long,  deep  body  and  straight 
underline  (the  so  called  "wedge-shape"  fowl)  will  lay  better  than 
one  with  a  narrow  breast,  a  short  body  and  curved  underline. 
The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  vital  organs  are  confined 
within  the  body,  and  in  a  hen  with  a  broad  breast  and  long,  deep 
body  there  is  plenty  of  room  for  the  organs  of  assimilation  and 
reproduction;  while  in  a  hen  with  a  short,  curved  body  these 
organs  are  necessarily  constricted.  If  a  hen  is  to  lay  well  she 
must  eat  well,  breathe  well,  and  have  large  ovaries;  in  other 
words  there  must  be  plenty  of  room  inside  for  all  the  great  organs 
to  perform  their  functions.  This  explains  why  there  is  a  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  egg-producing  breeds  to  increase  in  size. 


CHAPTER   II. 


THE  HOME  OF  THE  TWO  HUNDRED  EQQ  HEN. 


Much  of  a  man's  success  or  failure  in  the  poultry  business 
will  depend  upon  the  location  and  construction  of  his  plant. 
Where  hens  are  kept  in  small  numbers  and  given  free  range,  they 
do  well  almost  anywhere ;  but  where  they  are  kept  in  large  num- 
bers and  in  confinement,  they  must  have  as  favorable  condi- 
tions as  possible  or  they  will  prove  a  source  of  loss  and  not  of 
profit  to  their  owner. 

The  best  location  for  a  poultry  plant  is  on  sandy  soil  where 
there  is  a  gentle  slope  to  the  south  or  southeast.  If  there  is  a 
windbreak  of  some  kind  on  the  north  and  northwest  the  location 
becomes  ideal.  Such  a  location,  however,  is  hard  to  find — nor  is 
it  indispensable.  Poultry  can  be  kept  on  almost  any  soil,  pro- 
vided it  is  not  saturated  with  water  for  a  considerable  portion  of 
the  year.  Even  a  clay  soil  has  its  advantages :  it  produces  a  lux- 
uriant growth  of  grass  which  not  only  provides  the  fowls  with 
forage,  but  which  also  by  its  roots  takes  up  the  excrement  which 
otherwise  might  contaminate  the  ground. 

Before  the  poultryman  drives  a  nail  or  does  a  stroke  of  work, 
he  should  carefully  consider  the  possibilities  of  his  situation,  and 
lay  out  his  prospective  plant  in  his  mind.  If  he  is  to  build 
largely  at  once  it  might  pay  him  to  consult  an  expert.  But  if  he 
is  to  build  only  one  small  house,  he  should  build  it  with  reference 
to  others  that  he  may  put  up  in  future  years.  So  I  say,  have  a 
plan.  The  details  may  be  filled  in  at  the  poultryman's  conven- 
ience— or  they  may  never  be  filled  in.  But  if  the  man  lives  and 
his  business  grows  the  time  will  come  when  he  will  thank  his 
stars  that  he  was  wise  and  far-seeing  enough  to  have  a  plan  at 
the  very  start,  and  not  have  to  waste  time  and  money  moving 
buildings  about  or  in  tearing  them  down  and  replacing  them 
with  others. 

THE   COLONY   PLAN. 

There  are  three  methods  of  keeping  hens  in  large  numbers. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  colony  plan.  The  principle  of  the  colony 
plan  is  that  of  keeping  hens  in  small  segregated  houses — twenty- 
five  to  fifty  hens  in  a  house.  These  houses  are  scattered  at  regular 
intervals  over  the  farm,  and  are  visited  two  or  three  times  a  day 


by  an  attendant.  The  hens  are  given  free  range.  It  has  been 
found  that  when  houses  are  one  hundred  yards  apart,  or  even 
less,  flocks  will  not  mingle,  but  each  flock  will  keep  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  its  own  house.  This  plan  has  its  advantages.  It  is 
inexpensive.  The  houses  may  be  of  the  cheapest  kind.  No 
yards  are  required.  The  hens  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  pick 


Colony  house  to  accommodate  from  12  to  25  fowls.  This  house  is  eight  feet  square  on  the 
ground,  and  eight  feet  from  floor  to  apex  of  roof.  There  is  no  frame,  but  the  roof  boards  are 
nailed  to  the  ridgepole  and  to  plank  baseboards. 

up  a  good  deal  of  their  living.  If  the  houses  are  located  in  an 
orchard  the  hens  fertilize  the  ground  around  the  trees  and  eat 
the  wormy  fruit.  No  dangerous  disease  is  likely  to  break  out 
among  hens  kept  in  colonies.  But  on  the  other  hand  the  plan 
has  serious  drawbacks.  Even  in  pleasant  weather  it  requires  a 
good  deal  of  time  each  day  to  visit  the  scattered  flocks ;  but  in 
winter,  when  a  blizzard  is  raging,  to  make  the  rounds  of  the 
houses  is  an  experience  calculated  to  make  one  appreciate  the 
perils  and  hardships  of  a  Polar  expedition.  Then,  too,  these 
isolated,  detached  houses  are  shining  marks  for  thieves;  and 
unless  the  neighborhood  is  exceptionally  honest,  the  poultryman 
may  wake  up  some  morning  to  discover  that  two  or  three  hun- 
dred of  his  fowls  have  vanished. 


10 


THE    COMMUNITY    PLAN. 

The  second  method  of  keeping  hens  in  large  numbers  is  what 
I  may  call  the  community  plan,  and  is  sufficiently  described  by 
the  name.  The  majority  of  large  poultry  plants  in  this  country 
are  constructed  on  this  plan.  The  great  argument  in  favor  of 
this  plan  is  economy — economy  in  labor,  economy  in  land.  The 
original  cost  of  a  plant*  on  the  community  plan  is  somewhat  greater 
than  the  cost  of  a  plant  on  the  colony  plan ;  but  when  the  plant  is 
erected  and  equipped  the  saving  begins.  There  are,  however, 
some  objections  to  this  plan  besides  the  initial  cost.  It  has  been 
found  very  difficult  to  keep  the  houses  perfectly  dry,  where  the 
length  exceeds  sixty  feet.  Moisture  collects  on  the  walls  and 
roof,  and  in  cold  weather  congeals,  so  that  in  these  long  houses 
there  is  often  a  coating  of  frost.  In  cleaning  out  the  long  houses 
it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  reach  the  central  compartments,  requir- 
ing as  it  does  a  long  walk  and  the  opening  and  shutting  of  many 
doors  and  gates.  Where  a  virulent  disease  like  cholera  or  roup 
breaks  out  in  one  compartment,  as  it  sometimes  will,  it  has  been 
found  almost  impossible  to  confine  it  to  that  compartment — 
germs  traveling  in  the  air,  or  being  conveyed  from  one  pen  to 
another  in  excrement  which  may  stick  to  the  feet.  With  the 
community  plan  go  long,  narrow  yards  or  parks,  which  can  be 
fenced  only  at  considerable  cost. 

The  scratching  shed  has  now  become  an  integral  part  of  many 
of  the  long  houses.  The  scratching  shed,  as  its  name  implies,  is 
a  place  for  exercise  under  the  same  roof  with  the  laying  room, 
but  more  open  to  the  weather.  The  scratching  shed  has  many 
enthusiastic  advocates  who  claim  that  it  is  indispensable  to  the 
health  and  comfort  of  the  fowls  in  winter,  and  will  more  than  pay 
for  itself  in  an  increased  egg  output.  The  claims  for  the 
scratching  shed  house  seem  so  valid  that  if  I  were  building  a 
house  more  than  60  feet  in  length,  I  should  certainly  add  scratch- 
ing sheds. 

It  is  impossible  in  an  article  like  this  to  give  a  plan  for  a  house 
that  will  suit  every  purse  and  every  place.  I  can  only  submit  a 
cut  of  what  I  consider  the  best  community  house  I  have  yet  seen, 
and  give  a  brief  description  of  it.  The  house  is  on  the  Dunning- 
Gardner  Poultry  Farm,  of  Auburn,  N.  Y. 


11 


12 

The  house  shown  in  the  foreground  of  the  view  is 
180  feet  long  by  12  wide,  and  is  divided  into  10  sections,  each 
18  feet.  Each  section  is  in  turn  divided  into  a  scratching  shed 
of  nine  feet,  and  a  laying  and  roosting  room  of  the  same  length. 
The  house  is  made  of  the  best  material,  double  boarded  with  paper 
between  and  ceiled  overhead  at  the  height  of  six  feet.  In  each 
pen  is  a  large  window,  a.  small  ventilating  window  into  the  hall- 
way and  a  ventilating  hole  cut  through  the  ceiling  which  draws 
off  the  foul  air  but  forms  no  draught. 

The  scratching  sheds  are  open  in  front,  with  a  canvas  which 
can  be  let  down  to  keep  the  snow  out.  The  yards  are  150  feet 
long,  with  a  row  of  fruit  trees  in  each,  and  are  plowed  and 
sowed  each  year.  At  present  there  are  three  of  these  long  houses 
on  the  plant  and  more  will  be  added  as  they  are  needed. 

THE   MONTANA   EXPERIMENT    STATION    HOUSE. 

An  important  and  in  many  ways  desirable  variation  from  the 
ordinary  scratching  shed  house  is  the  main  poultry  building  in 
use  at  the  Agricultural  Experiment  Station  at  Bozeman,  Mon- 
tana. "The  building  is  72  feet  long  and  14  feet  wide  with  a  four 
foot  passage  in  the  rear.  It  is  divided  into  pens  12  feet  long  and 
10  feet  wide,  and  is  set  upon  a  foundation  of  stone  18  inches 
wide  and  two  feet  high.  The  slope  of  the  roof  is  for  the  main 
portion  to  the  south,  the  ridge  coming  just  above  the  passage  way 
four  feet  from  the  rear  wall.  This  slope  of  roof  is  of  great 
advantage  since  the  sun  rapidly  melts  the  snow  on  the  southern 
incline  making  it  warmer  and  drier,  while  on  the  other  side  the 
slope  is  so  steep  that  the  snow  does  not  lodge  there. 

"The  next  most  important  feature  is  the  double  floor.  The 
exit  from  the  pens  is  through  the  floor  into  the  space  underneath 
the  building.  This  basement  has  a  ground  floor,  and  it  is  two 
feet  from  the  ground  to  the  sills.  In  summer,  this  makes  a  fine, 
cool  and  shady  place  when  doors  shown  in  cut  are  down  and 
portholes  open,  while  in  winter  with  the  doors  raised  the  low  sun 
enables  the  sunlight  to  'extend  more  than  half  of  the  distance 
from  front  to  rear,  making  an  ideal  place  for  dusting  and  scratch- 
ing. This  feature  adds  greatly  to  the  usefulness  of  the  building, 
since  it  so  materially  increases  the  floor  space  without  affecting 
the  area  of  the  roof." 


14 


THE  COLONY-COMMUNITY  PLAN. 

The  third  method  of  keeping  hens  in  large  numbers  is,  so  far 
:as  I  know,  original  with  me,  and  may  be  called  the  colony-com- 
munity plan.  The  plan  in  brief  is  this :  to  keep  the  hens  in  small 
•detached  houses  built  in  streets  and  situated  close  to  one  another, 
with  yards  running  to  the  rear  instead  of  the  front. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  great  mistake  to  run  the  yards 
to  the  front  of  a  hen  house  instead  of  to  the  rear.  There  are 
innumerable  occasions  when  the  poultryman  wishes  to  visit  a  pen 
in  the  middle  of  a  long  house,  and  in  order  to  do  so  he  must  open 
and  shut  half  a  dozen  doors  or  pass  along  an  alley  way  for  fifty 
or  one  hundred  feet.  When  he  wishes  to  remove  the  litter  or 
shovel  sand  into  the  middle  pens  it  is  necessary  to  open  and  shut 
a  number  of  gates  before  he  can  do  so.  But  with  the  yards  in 
the  rear  the  poultryman  can  drive  along  the  front  of  his  house 
and  reach  the  middle  pen  as  easily  as  he  can  at  the  ends. 


Colony-community  houses  arranged  in  streets,  with  yards  running  to  the  rear. 

The  houses  that  I  use  in  the  colony-community  plan  are  all 
.alike,  and  are  very  simple  in  construction.  Each  house  is  12  feet 
long,  seven  feet  wide,  seven  feet  high  in  front  and  five  feet  high 
in  the  rear ;  and  is  designed  to  accommodate  50  brooder  chicks,  20 


15 


head  of  laying  stock,  or  a  breeding  pen  of  one  male  and  12 
females. 

The  house  rests  on  cedar  posts  or  old  railroad  ties  put  in  the 
ground  below  the  frost  line  and  sawed  off  eight  inches  above  the 
surface.  There  are  six  of  these  posts,  three  on  each  side,  and 
where  old  railroad  ties  are  used  the  whole  cost  of  the  founda- 
tion is  15  cents.  On  these  ties  are  laid  two  main  sills  and  four 
cross  sills,  each  2x4  spruce.  The  plates  are  2x4  stuff,  but  the 
other  timbers  in  the  frame — posts  and  rafters — are  2x3. 

After  the  building  is  framed  the  floor  is  laid.     This  is  double, 


Colony-community  house  designed  to  accommodate  50  brooder  chicks,  20  head  of  laying 
stock,  or  one  male  and  12  females. 

and  between  the  upper  and  lower  floor  Neponset  black  sheathing 
is  used.  The  covering  to  the  frame  is  then  put  on,  and  over  the 
boards  Neponset  black  sheathing  is  tacked.  This  is  to  be  cov- 
ered with  Neponset  red  paper.  All  the  boards  in  the  frame  are 
hemlock. 

The  roof  is  a  very  important  part  of  a  hen  house.  When  the 
rafters  are  put  on  they  are  sawed  off  flush  with  the  plate;  and 
when  the  sides  are  boarded  the  boards  are  brought  up  so  that 
they  cover  the  ends  of  the  rafters  and  also  the  edge  of  the  roofing 
boards,  making  an  absolutely  tight  joint.  Neponset  black  sheath- 


16 

ing  is  then  laid  over  the  roof  boards,  and  a  double  course  of 
shingles  laid  along  the  lower  edge  of  the  roof.  The  object  of  this 
course  of  shingles  is  to  throw  the  water  from  the  roof  away  from 
the  house.  The  roof  is  then  covered  with  Paroid,  carefully  put 
on  and  allowed  to  project  a  few  inches  at  the  ends.  This  flap 
will  eventually  be  turned  in  and  held  in  place  by  the  finish. 

The  house  is  supposed  to  face  south.  There  are  two  win- 
dows, one  on  the  south  side  and  one  on  the  east  end.  There  is 
a  door  in  front,  and  a  panel  in  the  rear  which  can  be  raised  or 
lowered  at  will  to  let  the  hens  out  into  the  yard.  After  the  house 
is  finished  all  the  outside  woodwork  receives  a  coat  of  dark  green 
paint,  which  forms  an  effective  contrast  with  the  brick-red  of  the 
Neponset  paper.  Indeed,  all  who  see  the  house  remark  how  neat 
and  pretty  it  is. 

INTERIOR  CONSTRUCTION. 

The  interior  of  the  house  is  of  the  very  simplest.  I  have 
learned  from  hard  experience  to  have  as  little  furniture  in  a  hen 
house  as  possible,  and  that  many  of  the  things  advertised  as 
helps  for  the  poultrymen  are  really  hindrances.  The  house,  as  I 
have  said,  faces  the  south.  The  roosts,  instead  of  being  in  the 
rear,  as  is  commonly  the  case,  are  in  the  west  end,  away  from  all 
possibility  of  draughts.  The  roost  platform  is  two  feet  and  a 
half  above  the  floor,  and  is  constructed  of  dry  matched  pine 
boards,  which  I  get  from  old  dry  goods  boxes.  The  platform,  as 
soon  as  built,  is  covered  with  a  coat  of  hot  tar.  There  are  two 
roosts,  or  perches,  parallel  and  on  the  same  level.  I  forgot  to  say 
that  the  roost  platform  is  three  feet  wide,  which  enables  me  to 
place  my  perches  one  foot  apart,  and  one  foot  from  the  back  wall 
and  one  foot  from  the  edge  of  the  platform.  The  perches  are  of 
spruce,  2x3,  with  the  upper  end  slightly  rounded,  and  set  in  sock- 
ets cut  out  of  boards.  They  are  removable.  The  perches  are 
also  covered  with  hot  tar,  as  are  the  sockets  in  which  they  are  set. 
Red  mites  let  my  houses  severely  alone. 

The  materials  used  in  the  house  are  as  follows :  Hemlock 
boards,  500  feet ;  matched  pine  for  doors,  trimmings,  etc.,  60  feet ; 
frame  (board  measure),  100  feet;  windows;  Neponset  black 
sheathing,  250  feet;  Neponset  red  rope,  250  f  eet:  Paroid,  100  feet; 
hardware,  etc.  The  cost  of  such  a  house,  exclusive  of  labor,  in 
New  Hampshire  to-day  would  be  not  far  from  $20.  Two  men, 
working  together,  can  complete  the  house  in  two  days.  Such  a 


17 


house  always  finds  a  ready  sale,  and  if  the  owner  wishes  to  move 
out  of  town  or  go  out  of  the  hen  business  at  any  time  he  can  sell 
the  honee  for  about  half  what  it  cost  him. 

In  case  a  somewhat  larger  house  is  wanted,  the  dimensions 
may  be  enlarged  as  follows:  Length,  14  feet;  width,  8  feet; 
height  in  front,  7^  feet ;  height  in  rear,  5^  feet.  This  will  pre- 
serve the  proportions  and  give  nearly  one-half  more  floor  space. 


HOUSE  MADE  FROM  PIANO  BOXES. 

Possibly  there  are  some  who  desire  even  a  cheaper  house  than 
the  ones  I  have  described.  It  may  be  they  expect  to  remain  but 
a  short  time  where  they  are,  or  wish  a  house  for  young  stock, 
and  do  not  care  to  invest  even  $20  in  a  building.  To  such  I 
would  say  that  a  good  temporary  house  can  be  made  from  two 


Three  Dollar  Poultry  Houses.     Good  summer  buildings,  and  in  a  warm  climate 
suitable  for  winter. 

piano  boxes  at  a  cost  of  about  $3.  The  simplest  way  to  make 
such  a  house  is  as  follows :  On  a  level  place  lay  down  two  joists 
eight  feet  long.  Take  the  boxes  and  carefully  remove  the  boards 
on  the  tallest  side.  Spike  the  boxes  to  the  joists,  so  that  the  open 
ends  will  face  each  other.  With  the  boards  you  have  taken  out 
close  up  the  gap  between  the  boxes  on  the  back  and  roof.  Put 
a  door  in  front,  a  pane  of  glass  on  either  side  of  the  door,  or  two 
panes  in  the  door  itself,  complete  laying  the  floor,  put  in  a  roost, 
cover  the  building  with  good  roofing  paper,  and  you  have  a  house 
that  will  accommodate  a  dozen  hens  at  a  trifling  cost. 


20 

movable  in  the  house  should  be  taken  outside.  Sweep  the  dust 
and  cobwebs  off  the  walls,  windows  and  ceiling.  Sweep  the 
floor,  if  you  have  one.  The  walls  should  then  receive  a  generous 
coat  of  hot  whitewash,  put  on  with  a  spray  pump  to  save  time.  A 
good  receipt  for  whitewash  is  as  follows :  Take  a  sufficient  quan- 
tity of  lime,  slack  it  slowly  and  wet  enough  to  make  into  a  thick 
putty.  Let  it  stand  in  this  shape  a  few  hours  or  a  few  days,  and 
then  reduce  it  with  water  to  the  thickness  desired.  Add  one  pint 
of  crude  carbolic  acid  to  every  12-quart  pailful,  and  you  will  have 
a  combination  that  will  be  death  of  lice.  Sprinkle  the  floor  with 
napcreol  or  some  other  disinfectant,  kerosene  the  roosts,  paint 
the  nest  boxes  with  some  good  lice  killer,  cover  the  dropping 
board  with  a  coat  of  hot  tar — in  short  give  the  house  a  thorough 
cleaning. 

LICE  AND  RED  MITES. 

Relentless  and  persistent  war  must  be  waged  against  lice 
and  red  mites.  The  poultryman  who  keeps  his  house  in  the  san- 
itary condition  I  have  described  is  apt  to  think  that  the  battle  is 
won,  that  there  is  nothing  more  to  do.  Such  is  not  the  case.  The 
foe  is  in  hiding;  it  is  not  destroyed.  There  comes  a  falling  off 
in  egg  production,  and  the  poultryman  wonders  what  is  the  cause. 
"Lice,"  says  a  too  candid  friend.  The  poultryman  waxes  indig- 
nant. "I'll  give  you  a  dollar  apiece  for  every  louse  you  find  on 
my  hens !"  he  exclaims.  The  friend  takes  a  hen  off  the  nest,  and 
holds  her  up  toward  the  light.  "Pull  apart  the  fluff  around  the 
vent/'  he  commands.  The  poultryman  does  so,  and,  lo !  a  covey 
of  lice  may  be  seen  cutting  to  cover  in  the  dense  jungle  of  soft 
feathers. 

Where  a  big  egg  record  is  desired  the  hens  must  not  be  left 
to  rid  themselves  of  lice  by  their  own  efforts,  but  must  be  dusted 
from  time  to  time.  The  poultryman  can  make  his  own  insect 
powder  cheaper  than  he  can  buy  it,  but  where  only  a  few  hens 
are  kept  it  will  not  pay  him  to  do  so.  Lambert's  "Death  to  Lice" 
and  Cyphers  Lice  Powder  are  standard  preparations.  If  the 
poultryman  wishes  to  make  his  own  powder  here  are  two  formu- 
las that  may  be  depended  upon : 

I.  Take  one  pint  of  slacked  lime  and  stir  into  it  one  ounce 
liquid  carbolic  acid.  Add  to  this  mixture  three  pounds  finely 
ground  tobacco  and  mix  thoroughly.  This  powder  dusted 
wherever  lice  are  will  kill  them.  2.  Take  five  pounds  strong 


tobacco  dust,  one  pound  air-slacked  lime,  one-half  pound  naptha- 
lene — mix  well  together.  This  is  sure  death  to  hen  lice,  plant 
lice,  lice  on  cattle,  sheep  ticks,  bed  bugs,  ants,  moths,  etc. 

Lice  paint  is  a  liquid  preparation,  and  is  used  for  painting 
roosts,  nests,  etc. 

The  fumes  penetrate  the  feathers  of  the  bird  and  kill  the  lice. 
Lee's  Lice  Killer  and  Cyphers  Surekil  Lice  Paint  are  highly 
recommended.  A  good  lice  paint  is  made  by  dissolving  one 
pound  napthalene  flakes  in  one  gallon  kerosene  oil. 

Red  mites  make  their  home  on  the  underside  of  the  roosts  and 
in  cracks  and  crevices  adjacent.  They  are  quiet  by  day,  but  by 
night  come  forth  to  suck  the  life  blood  of  their  victims.  The 
kerosene  treatment,  which  I  have  already  described,  is  sure  death 
to  red  mites,  and  it  is  folly  not  to  exterminate  them. 

TO  RID  A  HOUSE  OF  VERMIN. 
Sometimes  through  carelessness  or  neglect  a  house  becomes 
infested  with  vermin,  and  then  radical  measures  are  necessary. 
In  the  first  place  the  house  should  be  thoroughly  fumigated. 
Close  every  door  and  window,  and  see  that  there  are  no  cracks 
or  apertures  to  admit  air.  Burn  a  pound  of  sulphur  for  every  100 
.square  feet  of  floor  space  in  the  house:  thus  a  house  10x10  will 
require  one  pound  of  sulphur;  one  20x10  two  pounds, 
one  30x10  three  pounds,  and  so  on.  The  sulphur  must  be 
burned  in  iron  vessels,  which  must  be  set  on  gravel  or  sand, 
so  that  there  can  be  no  danger  from  fire..  Into  each  vessel  put 
a  handful  of  carpenter's  shavings,  saturated  with  kerosene,  and 
upon  these  sprinkle  the  sulphur.  Place  the  vessels  in  position, 
apply  a  match  to  the  shavings,  and  hastily  leave  the  house,  clos- 
ing the  door  behind  you.  Do  not  open  the  house  again  for  five 
hours,  when  every  door  and  window  should  be  thrown  wide  open. 
In  case  you  feel  any  anxiety  about  fire,  you  can  look  in  through 
a  window  once  in  a  while  to  see  that  everything  is  going  well. 

After  the  fumes  of  sulphur  have  been  driven  out,  with  a  hand 
sprayer  go  through  the  house  sending  a  spray  of  kerosene 
everywhere.  These  sprayers  can  be  bought  for  half  a  dollar 
each,  will  last  for  years,  and  are  simply  invaluable.  All  the  time 
you  have  been  at  work  the  hens  have  been  in  the  yard  outside, 
without  food,  and  are  now  anxious  to  return  to  their  home.  Let 
them  in,  one  by  one,  and  as  each  enters  catch  her  and  dust  her 
well  with  some  good  insecticide. 


22 

GIVE    THE    HENS    PLENTY    OF    ROOM. 

There  is  a  snare  spread  for  beginners  in  the  poultry  business 
which  catches  nearly  all :  it  is  to  crowd  the  birds.  The  pros- 
pective poultryman  has  a  small  flock  and  they  have  laid  well.  He 
begins  to  reason  like  this:  "I  have  kept  12  hens  in  this  pen  the 
past  year  and  they  have  netted  me  two  dollars  apiece.  All  I  have 
to  do  to  increase  my  income  is  to  increase  the  number  of  my  birds. 
If  12  hens  have  paid  me  §24,  50  hens  will  pay  me  $100."  This 
seems  logical,  and  the  prospective  poultryman  goes  to  work  and 
puts  in  50  birds,  only  to  find  at  the  end  of  the  year  that  the  50 
birds  have  not  paid  him  so  well  as  the  12  did.  They  have  laid  no 
more  eggs,  and  sickness  has  been  rife  among  them.  More  men 
lose  money  and  retire  from  the  poultry  business  in  disgust  from 
losses  brought  about  by  putting  too  many  birds  into  one  pen 
than  from  any  other  cause. 

The  farmer  would  not  think  of  putting  two  cows  in  one  stall. 
He  would  not  plant  his  potatoes  in  rows  one  foot  apart.  He 
would  not  shut  up  his  family  in  one  room.  Why  should  he  not 
display  the  same  good  sense  in  dealing  with  his  fowls?  Experi- 
ence has  shown  that  10  square  feet  of  floor  space  is  about  the 
amount  needed  by  each  hen  if  she  is  to  do  her  best.  Where  the 
house  is  kept  perfectly  clean,  and  where  the  hens  have  a  chance 
to  get  out  doors  every  pleasant  day,  they  can  get  along  with  a 
somewhat  smaller  space.  But  for  the  best  results  in  egg  pro- 
ducing there  must  be  plenty  of  room.  The  year  I  made  the 
phenomenal  record  with  my  White  Wyandottes — 214  eggs 
apiece  from  October  to  October — I  knocked  out  the  partitions 
between  two  pens  and  gave  the  flock  double  room. 

DUST   BATH. 

Provide  your  hens  with  a  dust  bath.  They  will  spend  many 
happy  hours  wallowing  in  the  warm  earth  and  will  keep  them- 
selves reasonably  free  from  lice.  But  do  not  trust  to  the  dust 
bath  entirely,  for  in  the  dead  of  winter  the  bath  is  often  so  cold 
that  the  biddies  will  not  use  it,  and  then  lice  will  get  in  their  work. 
Soil  out  of  the  garden,  sifted  through  a  common  coal  sieve,  makes 
the  best  material  for  a  dust  bath  that  I  know  anything  about. 
Next  to  this  I  rank  coal  ashes.  The  bath  tub  may  be  a  sugar 
barrel,  sawed  off  about  a  foot  from  the  bottom  and  set  in  a  sunny 
place,  or  one  of  those  shallow  square  boxes  that  "Force"  and 
other  cereal  foods  come  in,  which  may  generally  be  obtained  of 
the  grocer  for  the  asking. 


23 

EXERCISE. 

Hens  need  a  reasonable  amount  of  exercise.  They  do  not 
need  to  be  kept  on  the  jump  from  morning  until  night,  but  they 
do  need  enough  exercise  to  keep  them  in  good  trim.  Where 
hens  have  free  Tange  they  will  attend  to  the  matter  of 
exercise  themselves — although  a  hen  having  free  range  knows 
enough  not  to  work  when  it  is  very  hot  or  very  cold.  But  when 
in  confinement  exercise  must  be  provided  for  them.  The  floor 
of  the  hen  house,  or  scratching  shed,  should  be  kept 
carpeted  with  six  inches  of  litter  in  winter,  and  the  fowls  should 
be  made  to  work  for  all  the  grain  they  eat.  This  litter,  as  I  have 
already  said,  should  be  frequently  shaken  up  and  occasionally 
renewed.  Straw,  fresh  hay  and  dead  leaves  make  the  best  litter. 
Dry  planer  shavings  are  good  if  they  are  not  allowed  to  become 
too  fine. 

THE    POULTRY   YARD. 

In  summer  the  hens  should  be  out  in  their  yards.  The  yard 
does  not  need  to  be  very  large.  Indeed,  unless  the  yard  is  large 
enough  to  grow  all  the  green  stuff  that  is  needed  for  forage,  a 
small  yard  is  better  than  a  large  one,  for  it  is  more  likely  to  be 
kept  clean.  Much  money  is  spent  each  year  for  wire  netting 
and  foundation  boards  for  fences  that  could  be  laid  out  to  much 
better  advantage  in  some  other  way.  There  should  be  shade  of 
some  kind  in  the  yard.  If  the  yard  is  small  it  should  be  raked 
and  swept  every  week  and  the  surface  droppings  removed.  It 
should  be  spaded  up  from  time  to  time.  In  the  spring  the  sur- 
face soil  to  the  depth  of  three  or  four  inches  should  be  removed 
and  spread  on  the  garden  and  replaced  with  fresh  earth.  If  this 
is  done  there  is  much  less  danger  of  sickness  with  a  small  yard 
than  with  a  big  one  that  is  never  cleaned. 

GRIT,  CHARCOAL  AND  OYSTER  SHELLS. 
Nature  has  not  provided  fowls  with  teeth,  and  consequently 
they  cannot  masticate  their  food  as  can  the  higher  animals.  The 
food  passes  from  the  crop  into  the  gizzard,  where  it  is  prepared 
for  the  intestines  by  trituration ;  that  is,  as  the  food  passes 
through  the  gizzard  it  is  triturated,  or  ground  up,  by  the  little 
flinty  particles  which  line  that~member.  Unless  the  fowl  is  well 
supplied  with  grit  the  food  passes  into  the  intestines  improperly 
prepared,  and  the  result  is  indigestion.  It  is  a  great  mistake  not 


24 

to  keep  the  fowls  well  supplied  with  grit.  Charcoal  is  an  alter- 
ative and  tonic,  and  should  be  before  the  hens  all  the  time. 
Oyster  shells  are  necessary  to  supply  the  lime  needed  for  the  egg 
shells,  and  nothing  can  take  their  place. 

DRINKING   WATER. 

Pure  drinking  water  is  as  necessary  to  the  health  and  comfort 
of  fowls  as  it  is  to  the  health  and  comfort  of  human  beings,  and 
should  be  supplied  in  abundance.  The  water  dishes  should  be 
scalded  out  from  time  to  time,  and  if  a  few  drops  of  carbolic  acid 
are  added  to  the  water  with  which  they  are  scalded  so  much  the 
better.  Have  your  water  dish  as  simple  as  possible.  There  is  noth- 
ing better  than  a  two-quart  measure,  made  of  galvanized  iron,  set 
on  a  little  shelf  by  the  door  of  the  hen  house  and  six  inches  from 
the  floor. 

SANITATION   IN    SUMMER. 

It  has  been  my  observation  that  hens  that  are  kept  shut  up  in 
houses  and  yards  suffer  more  from  lack  of  sanitation  in  summer 
than  in  winter.  There  are  a  hundred  directions  printed 
for  making  the  house  warm  to  one  for  making  it  cool. 
And  yet  anyone  who  has  watched  a  hen  on  a  hot  day 
in  mid-summer,  with  mouth  wide  open  and  wings  outspread, 
must  realize  that  the.  poor  creature  is  far  from  comfortable. 
Houses  built  on  the  colony  community  plan,  such  as  I  have 
already  described,  are  ideal  houses  for  summer  as  well  as  for 
winter,  as  there  is  a  window  in  the  front  and  on  the  end.  As 
soon  as  warm-  weather  comes  I  take  out  both  windows  letting  the 
air  circulate  freely  through  the  house.  Poultry  wire  tacked  on 
the  outside  of  the  window  frame  keeps  the  biddies  in  and  the 


CHAPTER   IV. 


FEEDING  FOR  TWO  HUNDRED  EGGS  A  YEAR. 

We  now  have  our  hens  in  a  dry,  warm,  sunny  and  sanitary 
house,  have  supplied  them  with  facilities  for  keeping  clean,  and 
of  course  want  them  to  lay.  What  shall  we  feed  and  how  much  ? 
This  is  an  important  question,  for  unless  a  hen  is  supplied  with 
material  for  egg  production  she  cannot  lay.  She  can  no  more 
produce  eggs  without  the  proper  food  than  a  factory  can  turn  out 
the  finished  product  without  raw  materials.  What  shall  we  feed 
and  how  much  shall  we  feed,  therefore? 

Let  us  again  fdllow  Lord  Bacon's  advice  and  interrogate 
Nature.  Suppose  we  take  a  hen  as  she  comes  up  to  the  house  at 
the  close  of  a  long  day  in  summer  from  foraging  in  the  fields,  kill 
her,  take  out  her  crop  and  analyze  its  contents.  If  we  do  so  it  is 
obvious  that  we  shall  obtain  at  least  a  part  of  the  information  we 
are  after,  for  a  hen  lays  in  summer  or  not  at  all. 

What  do  we  find  as  the  result  of  our  analysis  ?  The  crop  we 
are  dissecting  has  about  as  many  articles  in  it  as  the  average  small 
boy's  pocket,  and  they  are  equally  miscellaneous.  We  find  grains 
of  corn  that  the  hen  has  picked  up  about  the  barn,  pieces  of  bread 
and  table  waste  that  she  has  found  under  the  sink  spout,  clover 
leaves  and  tips  of  grass  blades,  bugs,  worms  and  a  mass  of  matter 
that  we  cannot  resolve  into  the  original  elements.  The  first  thing 
that  impresses  us  as  the  result  of  our  analysis  is  that  the  hen  seeks 
VARIETY.  The  second  is,  that  this  variety  admits  of  classifica- 
tion. This  mass  of  miscellaneous  matter  that  we  found  .in  the 
hen's  crop  can  be  arranged  in  three  divisions:  i.  Grain.  2. 
Green  food  and  vegetables.  3.  Animal  food — in  the  form  of 
bugs,  worms  and  so  forth.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible,  that 
these  three  elements  must  be  combined  if  we  would  have  a  perfect 
ration. 

How  shall  we  combine  them?  The  answer  is  not  so  difficult 
as  one  would  at  first  suppose.  There  are  many  ways.  The  hen 
makes  a  new  combination  every  day.  Perhaps  the  ideal  way  is 
to  have  no  stereotyped  method,  but  to  study  variety.  If  we  com- 
bine grain,  green  food  and  meat  in  the  daily  ration,  the  hen  can 
hardly  fail  to  respond  with  a  goodly  output  of  eggs. 


26 

FEEDING   FOR   EGGS:    HOW   MUCH. 

The  problem,  as  every  poultryman  knows,  is  not  what  to  feed,, 
but  how  much.  If  you  do  not  believe  this  write  to  the  editor  of 
your  favorite  poultry  paper  and  ask  him  how  much  food  you  shall 
give  a  flock  of  15  hens,  and  see  what  he  will  say.  It  takes  a 
great  deal  of  skill  to  steer  between  overfeeding  on  the  one  hand 
and  underfeeding  on  the  other.  I  believe  however  that  there  is 
a  scientific  principle  underlying  the  matter,  and  think  that  after 
a  great  deal  of  study  and  experimentation  I  have  discovered  the 
principle. 

In  order  to  determine  how  much  we  should  feed  we  must 
again  interrogate  Nature.  Before  we  began  to  dissect  the  crop 
of  the  hen  we  had  killed,  suppose  we  had  put  it  in  the  scales  to 
ascertain  its  weight.  If  the  hen  from  which  the  crop  was  taken 
was  of  an  American  breed,  if  she  had  been  running  in  the  fields 
all  day  and  just  before  she  had  been  killed  had  been  given  all  the 
corn  that  she  would  eat,  her  crop  with  its  contents  would  weigh  not 
far  from  six  ounces.  Allowing  that  two  ounces  of  food  have 
passed. from  the  crop  into  the  gizzard  during  the  day,  and  from 
the  gizzard  into  the  intestines,  it  will  be  seen  that  when  a  hen  is 
on  the  range,  supplied  with  abundance  of  food,  she  will  consume 
about  eight  ounces  of  food  in  the  course  of  24  hours.  It  would 
seem  therefore  that  this  is  about  the  amount  a  hen  needs  to  supply 
all  the  demands  of  her  system  and  leave  a  margin  for  egg  produc- 
tion. But  before  we  settle  down  to  this  conclusion  there  are  some 
things  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  On  the  range  the  hen  has 
had  plenty  of  exercise,  and  needs  more  food  to  supply  the  tissue 
lost  than  when  in  confinement.  On  the  range  food  is  more 
bulky  and  less  nutritious  than  the  food  the  hen  receives  in  her 
pen.  It  contains  a  larger  proportion  of  grass  and  vegetables.  It  is 
probable  that  in  the  pen,  where  the  hen  does  not  exercise  so  freely 
as  she  does  on  the  range  and  where  her  food  is  more  concentrated, 
she  does  not  need  so  much  food  by  one-fourth  as  she  does  when 
at  liberty.  Six  ounces  of  food  a  day  ought  therefore  to  be  ample 
to  supply  all  the  needs  of  a  hen  in  confinement. 

Six  ounces  of  food  a  day  for  a  hen  weighing  six  pounds  seems 
at  first  sight  an  enormous  quantity.  In  the  same  ratio  a  man 
weighing  160  would  consume  10  pounds  of  food  every  24  hours. 
But  before  we  dismiss  the  matter  as  absurd  let  us  consider  a 
moment.  The  hen's  food  is  not  so  concentrated  as  the  man's.  It 
contains  far  less  nutriment  in  proportion  to  bulk.  A  considerable 


27 

proportion  of  it  will  be  voided  in  the  form  of  excrement.  Then 
the  hen  has  a  task  to  perform  such  as  is  imposed  upon  few  other 
creatures.  She  is  expected  to  lay  an  egg  weighing  not  less  than 
two  ounces ;  and  an  egg,  as  everyone  knows,  is  one  of  the  richest 
of  food  products.  Deduct  from  the  six  ounces  of  food  two 
ounces  for  waste  and  two  ounces  for  egg  production,  and  it  will 
be  seen  that  only  two  ounces  are  left  to  repair  the  tissues  and 
maintain  the  temperature  of  the  body.  The  laying  hen  needs  a 
generous  diet,  and  those  doctrinaires  who  advocate  keeping  her  in 
a  state  of  semi-starvation  have  no  support  in  reason  for  their 
theory. 

FEEDING    FOR    EGGS:    WINTER    METHOD. 

Having  given  my  readers  the  principles  that  apply  to  feeding, 
I  purpose  now  to  tell  them  how  I  put  these  principles  into  prac- 
tice. I  desire  to  state  here  that  I  have  no  patent  methods.  I  aim 
to  apply  common  sense  to  the  problem  of  egg  production,  as  I  da 
to  other  things ;  but  I  do  not  claim  to  have  a  monopoly  of  wis- 
dom. There  are  doubtless  other  methods  as  good  as  mine.  As  I 
said  in  a  preceding  section,  there  are  many  possible  combinations 
that  will  produce  good  results.  I  give  you  mine,  and  leave  you 
to  adopt  it  or  not  as  you  think  best. 

From  October  to  May  I  feed  as  follows:  A  mash  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning.  The  mash  is  made  as  I  am  about  to 
describe.  Into  an  iron  kettle  holding  12  quarts  I  put  two  quarts 
(dry  measure)  cut  clover,  two. quarts  mixed  feed  or  wheat  bran, 
two  quarts  corn  meal,  one  quart  green  ground  bone  or  beef  scraps, 
and  one  quart  table  scraps.  The  ingredients  are  thoroughly  mixed 
together.  I  then  take  the  kettle  into  the  house  and  set  it  on 
the  range  where  the  metal  can  become  warm.  I  next  stir  in  a 
heaping  teaspoonful  of  coarse-fine  salt,  and  in  the  coldest  weather 
sprinkle  in  a  little  black  pepper.  Boiling  water  is  then  added  to 
-the  mash  in  just  sufficient  quantity  to  moisten  every  particle  and 
yet  not  have  it  sticky  and  sloppy.  I  consider  the  mash  just  right 
to  feed  when  I  can  take  some  up  in  my  hand  and  have  it  feel 
pleasantly  warm  (not  hot),  and  dry  enough  so  that  it  will  not 
adhere  to  the  palm  or  fingers.  Some  advocate  dry  feeding.  I 
have  no  doubt  the  food  is  just  as  nourishing  without  the  water, 
and  after  they  become  accustomed  to  it  (or  starved  into  it)  the 
hens  will  eat  it  readily  enough;  but  before  the  food  can  be 
digested  it  must  be  moistened,  and  I  think  it  better  and  safer  to 


28 

moisten  it  for  the  birds  myself  than  to  allow  them  to  do  so.  I 
do  not  believe  the  bird  can  moisten  a  large  handful  of  dry  mix- 
ture after  it  enters  the  crop  so  evenly  as  I  can  before  it  goes 
there.  Then  if  the  mash  is  about  the  temperature  of  the  bird's 
body  when  it  is  fed  (or,  on  cold  mornings,  a  little  higher)  she 
will  not  have  to  use  up  her  heat  in  raising  it  to  that  temperature. 

FEED  ALL  THE  HENS  WILL  EAT  UP  CLEAN. 

I  feed  all  the  mash  the  hens  will  eat  up  clean  in  a  reasonable 
time — say  from  15  minutes  to  half  an  hour.  Then  I  go  through 
the  pens  and  empty  what  is  left  (if  anything  )back  into  the  kettle, 
to  be  fed  the  next  day.  At  1 1  o'clock  I  make  a  round  of  the  pens 
to  collect  the  eggs  and  look  after  the  birds.  On  this  trip  I  take 
with  me  green  food  of  some  sort — mangel  wurzels,  cabbages, 
apples  or  onions — and  leave  in  each  pen  the  amount  that  experi- 
ence has  shown  me  the  birds  will  eat  up  clean.  About  two  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon  I  make  the  round  of  the  pens  again.  I  have  told 
you  that  in  each  pen  I  keep  a  male  and  12  females,  and  on  this 
trip  in  the  early  afternoon  I  throw  down  in  the  deep  litter  one 
quart  (dry  measure)  of  grain  of  some  kind.  The  three  grains  I 
feed  are  wheat,  cracked  corn  and  oats.  I  study  to  give  variety. 
On  a  mild  afternoon  I  feed  all  oats  or  all  wheat,  on  a  moderately 
•cold  afternoon,  about  half  cracked  corn  and  about  half  wheat  or 
oats, — and  on  a  very  cold  afternoon,  cracked  corn  alone.  When 
I  get  home  from  making  pastoral  calls  it  is  generally  dusk  and  the 
hens  have  gone  to  roost.  Before  supper  I  go  through  each  pen  to 
see  that  the  birds  are  all  right  for  the  night.  I  empty  the  water 
dishes,  collect  any  eggs  that  may  be  in  the  nests, 
pause  a  moment  in  each  house  to  see  that  the  birds 
are  breathing  right  (no  colds  nor  bronchitis)  and  occa- 
sionally feel  of  the  crops  to  see  if  I  am  feeding  enough. 
If  the  crop  is  comfortably  full — neither  distended  on  the  one,  hand 
nor  nearly  empty  on  the  other — I  conclude  that  the  grain  ration 
is  about  right  so  far  as  quantity  is  concerned. 

STUDY  VARIETY. 

I  have  given  the  ingredients,  of  my  standard  morning  mash, 
l»ut  I  vary  these  ingredients  from  time  to  time.  I  don't  want  the 
same  thing  for  breakfast  every  morning,  and  I  don't  believe  my 
birds  do.  About  twice  a  week  I  substitute  gluten  meal  or  linseed 
meal  for  green  ground  bone  or  meat  scraps ;  and  once  in  a  while 


29 

I  give  a  breakfast  of  scalded  oats — the  oats  scalded  the  night 
before  and  allowed  to  stand  on  the  back  of  the  stove  where  they 
will  be  warm  and  nice  in  the  morning.  Occasionally  I  give  a 
breakfast  made  up  of  three  parts  by  bulk  of  Biles'  Fourex*  and  one 
part  by  bulk  of  corn  meal.  When  I  have  plenty  of  small  potatoes 
I  make  up  a  dish  composed  of  boiled  mashed  potatoes,  green 
ground  bone  and  mixed  feed  or  bra-n,  which  the  fowls  eat  with 
avidity.  I  put  in  about  four  quarts  potatoes,  two  quarts  green 
ground  bone  and  two  quarts  mixed  feed  or  bran — season  and 
serve  hot.  The  table  scraps,  which  I  feed  every  morning,  add 
variety  to  my  standard  ration. 

*  Biles'  Fourex   (XXXX)   is  a  by-product  from  distillers'   grains.     Very  rich  in  fat  and 
protein.     A  valuable  new  food,  when  mixed  with  one-third  its  bulk  of  corn  meal. 

FEEDING   FOR   EGGS— SUMMER   METHOD. 

My  method  of  feeding  in  summer  is  substantially  the  same  as 
it  is  in  winter,  except  that  corn  is  struck  entirely  off  my  list  and 
wheat  and  oats  made  to  take  its  place.  In  summer,  too,  I  give  my 
hens  grass  and  weeds  from  the  garden  for  green  food,  instead  of 
mangels,  cabbages,  apples  and  onions.  We  are  fortunate  here  in 
Hampton  in  having  close  at  hand  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  food 
not  usually  found.  Every  northeast  storm  washes  up  on  the  beach 
tons  and  tons  of  seaweed,  which  may  be  had  for  the  hauling.  A 
load  of  seaweed  dumped  into  a  yard  in  summer  will  breed  mil- 
lions of  small  white  worms,,  which  the  fowls  eat  greedily.  These 
worms,  or  maggots,  are  said  to  be  better  for  the  hens  than  wheat, 
and  certainly  form  a  very  cheap  addition  to  the  daily  bill  of  fare. 

FEEDING  FOR  EGGS— CAUTION. 

In  what  goes  before  I  have  given  my  method  of  feeding,  but 
this  method  will  need  to  be  adapted  to  individual  cases.  No  hard 
and  fast  rule  can  be  laid  down.  The  poultryman  must  study 
his  flock,  and  learn  by  experience — he  must  mix  brains  with  his 
mash.  The  large  criticism  that  will  be  made  is  that  I  feed  too 
heavy  and  do  not  make  my  birds  exercise  enough.  Bear  in  mind, 
however,  that  I  have  been  talking  about  laying  stock.  Birds  that 
are  kept  over  for  breeding  are  fed  the  same  things  that  I  feed 
my  laying  stock,  but  are  not  fed  so  much  and  are  made  to  exer- 
cise more.  In  one  case  I  am  after  eggs  and  a  good  many  of 
them ;  in  the  other,  I  am  after  fertile  eggs — that  will  hatch  strong 


30 

chicks.  If  you  notice  that  your  birds  are  becoming  fat  and  lazy, 
•drop  an  occasional  soft-shelled  egg,  and  that  their  combs  instead 
of  being  a  healthy  red  are  a  dull  purple,  reduce  the  ration  at  once 
and  set  the  birds  to  work — otherwise  you  will  have  dead  hens  on 
your  hands.  About  the  time  of  feeding  the  mash :  it  don't  make 
a  cent's  worth  of  difference  whether  you  feed  morning,  noon  or 
night,  so  long  as  you  feed  enough  and  feed  the  right  things. 

THE  GOLDEN  RULE  FOR  FEEDING. 

Give  the  hen  a  sufficient  variety  and  quantity  to  meet  all  the 
needs  of  her  system  and  leave  a  margin  for  egg  production.  A 
warm  mash  in  the  morning,  all  she  will  eat  with  good  relish  in  15 
minutes  to  half  an  hour.  Enough  grain  during  the  day  so  that 
she  will  go  to  roost  with  a  crop  moderately  full,  neither  dis- 
tended on  the  one  hand  nor  nearly  empty  on  the  other.  Green] 
food,  either  in  mash  or  separately.  More  heating  food  in  winter 
and  more  of  it  than  in  summer.  In  general  it  may  be  said,  that 
one  ounce  of  food  a  day  for  each  pound  she  weighs  is  about  right 
for  the  average  hen. 

HOW    SOME   SUCCESSFUL   MEN    FEED. 

MR.  B.  F.  DUNLAP,  West  Salisbury,  N.  H.— One  of  the  most 
remarkable  poultrymen  that  I  know  anything  about  is  Mr.  B.  F. 
Dunlap  of  West  Salisbury,  N.  H.,  who  keeps  from  450  to  500 
head  of  laying  stock  (White  Wyandottes  and  Rhode  Island 
Reds)  and  clears  up  a  profit  of  $1,000  yearly.  Mr.  Dunlap  is 
postmaster  and  proprietor  of  a  country  store,  and  all  the  time  he 
can  devote  to  his  hens  is  what  he  can  snatch  from  his  business. 
Mr.  Dunlap  lives  five  miles  from  the  nearest  railroad,  and  makes 
his  profits  from  eggs,  which  he  markets  in  Boston. 

"Every  day  something  different,"  is  the  principle  he  goes  on, 
as  expressed  in  his  own  words.  He  has  four  combinations,  which 
he  names  from  the  leading  article  in  each :  Boiled  potatoes,  \vaste 
bread,  clover  hay,  whole  oats.  The  four  combinations  are  as  fol- 
lows, enough  kettlesful  being  mixed  up  to  feed  the  whole  flock : 

1.  Boiled  potatoes,  soaked  over    night,    8    quarts;    gluten, 
soaked  over  night,  3  quarts.     In  the  morning  add  mixed  feed,  2 
quarts ;  corn  and  oats,  ground  and  mixed  together,  2  quarts. 

2.  Waste  bread,  soaked  over  night,  8  quarts;  beef  scraps,  2 
quarts;  corn  and  oats,  2  quarts. 


31 

3.  Clover  hay,  soaked  over  night.     In  the  morning  add  2 
quarts  flour  middlings,  2  quarts  boiled  beef  and  bone,  2  quarts 
corn  and  oats. 

4.  Whole  oats,  soaked  over  night,  8  quarts;  gluten,  soaked 
over  night,  4  quarts.     In  the  morning  add  2  quarts  shorts,  I  quart 
beef  and  bone,  2  quarts  corn  and  oats. 

The  mash  is  fed  in  the  morning,  and  the  hens  are  given  all 
they  will  eat  up  clean  in  ten  minutes.  The  second  and  last  meal 
•comes  at  noon,  and  is  grain  of  some  kind. 

The  day  Mr.  Dunlap  feeds  boiled  potatoes  the  hens  have  wheat. 
The  day  he  feeds  waste  bread  they  have  wheat  or  cracked  corn. 
The  day  he  feeds  clover  hay  they  have  cracked  corn.  And  the 
day  he  feeds  oats  and  gluten  they  have  cracked  corn  or  buckwheat. 
The  grain  is  thrown  into  the  sand  and  litter  in  each  pen,  and  the 
hens  have  to  scratch  for  it.  Mr.  Dunlap  does  not  give  the  hens 
all  the  grain  they  can  eat,  but  as  much  as  they  can  digest  and 
come  to  breakfast  the  next  morning  with  an  empty  crop  and  a 
good  appetite.  Whole  turnips  are  kept  in  the  pens  all  the  time, 
so  that  the  hens  can  get  a  taste  of  green  food  when  they  want  it. 


MR.  G.  M.  GOWELL  of  the  Maine  Experiment  Station  is  doing 
some  excellent  work  with  hens.  Mr.  Gowell  is  the  originator  of 
the  trap  nest  described  in  this  book,  and  keeps  individual  records. 
He  breeds  White  Wyandottes  and  Barred  Plymouth  Rocks,  and 
long  ago  found  the  200  egg  hen.  He  feeds  as  follows : 

Twenty  pullets  and  two  cockerels  are  kept  in  each  lot. 

Each  pen  of  22  receives  one  pint  of  wheat,  in  the  deep  litter 
early  in  the  morning.  At  9.30  A.M.  one-half  pint  of  oats  is  fed 
to  them  in  the  same  way.  At  I  P.M.  one-half  pint  of  cracked  corn 
is  given  in  the  litter  as  before.  At  3  P.M.  in  winter  and  4  P.M.  in 
the  summer  they  are  given  all  the  mash  they  will  eat  up  clean, 
in  half  an  hour. 

The  mash  is  made  of  the  following  mixture  of  meals : — 
200  pounds  wheat  bran ;  100  pounds  corn  meal ;  100  pounds  wheat 
middlings ;  100  pounds  linseed  meal ;  100  pounds  meat  meal  or  fine 
meat  scraps.  Part  of  the  year  the  linseed  meal  is  omitted,  and  the 
amount  of  meat  meal  doubled.  The  mash  contains  one-fourth 
of  its  bulk  of  clover  leaves  and  heads,  secured  from  the  feeding 
floor  in  the  cattle  barn.  The  clover  is  thoroughly  soaked  with  hot 
water.  The  mash  is  made  quite  dry.  Cracked  bone,  oyster  shells, 
•  clean  grit  and  water  are  at  all  times  before  them.  Two  large 


32 

mangels  are  fed  to  the  birds  in  each  pen  daily  in  winter,  and 
green  food  in  plenty  in  summer. 


C.  BRICAULT,  M.D.V.,  of  Andover,  Mass.,  is  another  man  who 
has  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  2OO-egg  hen — some  of  his  White 
Wyandottes  having  considerably  exceeded  this  figure.  Dr. 
Bricault  relies  more  upon  inheritance  than  upon  any  special  bill 
of  fare  in  getting  the  2OO-egg  hen,  but  his  method  of  feeding,  as 
given  in  his  own  words,  is  excellent. 

"Morning. — One  of  the  following  grains  is  scattered  in  the 
litter:  oats,  wheat,  corn,  barley,  about  one  handful  to  two  hens. 
We  then  water  the  hens,  giving  warmed  water  on  very  cold  days ; 
that  is,  water  with  the  chill  taken  off. 

"Noon.— Grain  as  in  the  morning,  but  less,  about  one  handful 
to  three  hens.  We  feed  a  different  grain  at  every  meal.  At  this 
meal  we  give  the  green  food  of  the  day  (cabbage  one  day,  beets 
the  next,  scalded  clover  or  whatever  we  have  on  hand),  but  they 
get  green  food  every  day.  Sometimes  we  give  a  feed  of  green 
cut  bone  as  a  variety  in  place  of  grain ;  but  we  do  not  feed  cut 
bone  regularly.  • 

"Night. — Our  mash  is  fed  at  night,  and  we  give  the  hens  all 
they  will  eat.  We  make  the  mash  as  follows:  bran,  corn  meal, 
ground  oats,  equal  parts  by  bulk,  well  mixed  together.  These 
meals  are  put  in  the  trough  with  enough  boiling  water  to  make 
the  mass  'wet  dry/  and  covered  over  with  a  bag  and  left  to  cook 
in  their  own  heat ;  when  cool  it  is  fed.  We  feed  the  mash  every 
second  day.  We  feed  it  in  long  troughs,  and  give  all  they  will 
eat  up  clean  in  half  an  hour.  The  days  on  which  the  mash  is 
omitted  we  give  one  of  the  above  mentioned  grains — one  handful 
to  each  hen. 

"A  self-feeding  trough  is  placed  in  every  pen,  divided  into 
three  compartments :  in  one  there  is  grit,  in  the  other  oyster  shells, 
the  third  contains  a  mixture  of  meat  and  the  ground  grains  used 
in  the  mash,  half  meat  and  half  grain.  This  last  makes  a  good 
mixture  to  serve  as  lunch  between  meals. 

"We  also  keep  a  small  piece  of  rock  salt  in  each  pen  for  the 
hens  to  pick  at.  This  can  be  placed  in  a  slatted  box,  with  the  slats 
about  2  inches  apart. 

"We  believe  in  regularity  in  feeding  and  practice  it. 

"After  the  hens  have  gone  to  roost  at  night,  we  scatter  the 
morning  feed  in  the  litter  so  the  hens  can  go  to  scratching  as  soon 
as  they  come  off  the  roost  in  the  morning." 


33 

FEEDING    FOR   EGGS:    A   WOMAN'S    WAY. 

"In  the  morning  I  feed  a  mash  made  of  about  two  parts  bran 
to  one  part  ground  oats.  For  every  50  hens  I  put  in  two  quarts, 
good  measure,  of  green  ground  bone;  also  some  vegetable,  well 
cooked  and  mashed.  This  latter  I  vary  as  much  as  possible, 
using  water  in  which  vegetables  have  been  cooked  to  moisten  the 
mash,  providing  it  is  not  so  strongly  flavored  as  to  be  disagree- 
able to  the  hens,  as  sometimes  happens  if  turnips  have  been 
cooked  in  it.  The  proportion  of  vegetable  matter  giyen  to  hens 
in  winter  is  much  smaller  than  that  given  in  summer,  and  also 
smaller  than  the  other  ingredients  in  the  mash.  In  summer  cut 
grass  or  clover  and  vegetable  tops  are  substituted  for  the  roots 
given  in  winter  and  are  fed  separately  whenever  convenient. 
Dried  beef  scraps  are  substituted  in  summer  for  the  ground  bone 
in  winter  and  are  fed  in  smaller  quantities,  perhaps  half  the 
amount.  I  season  with  salt  rather  less  than  I  would  for  my 
family.  I  never  use  pepper,  but  occasionally  ginger.  When 
using  pepper  and  seasoning  highly  with  salt,  I"  have  always  had 
more  or  less  hens  die  of  liver  trouble  in  spring.  My  mash  is 
always  thoroughly  scalded  and  frequently  well  cooked,  as  in 
winter  I  often  mix  it  the  night  before  and  let  it  remain  in  the  oven 
over  night.  Animal  meal  I  consider  a  cheap  food  which  will 
make  hens  lay ;  but  I  cannot  use  it,  even  in  much  smaller  quanti- 
ties than  the  rule,  on  account  of  its  laxative  qualities. 

"My  hens  always  have  warm  water  in  clean  drinking  vessels 
in  winter  and  cool  water  in  summer. 

"The  second  and  last  feed  comes  after  dinner,  when  I  hoe  or 
rake  into  the  litter  on  hen  house  floor  two  parts  whole  oats  to  one 
part  wheat.  The  litter  is  six  or  eight  inches  deep,  and  the  feed 
is  given  generously  enough  to  make  them  feel  rewarded  for 
scratching  up  to  the  next  afternoon. 

"Oyster  shells  I  prefer  to  throw  in  fresh  every  day,  especially 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  winter,  when  they  get  too  busy  laying  to 
eat  the  proper  amount  of  lime. 

"A  neighbor  adopted  my  way  of  feeding,  but  with  pullets 
bought  of  me  failed  to  get  like  results.  I  attribute  the  failure  to 
the  fact  that  he  was  afraid  of  wasting  feed,  and  if  he  could  possi- 
bly find  a  grain  would  not  feed  more.  In  the  morning  I  feed  all 
the  hens  will  eat  with  a  relish.— Miss  L.  M.  S.t  Auburn,  Me. 


CHAPTER  V. 


FOODS  AND  FOOD  VALUES. 


Readers  of  the  poultry  and  agricultural  press  are  continually 
coming  across  expressions  the  meaning  of  which  they  but  dimly 
comprehend.  They  read  of  "narrow"  and  "wide"  rations,  "pro- 
teids"  and  "carbohydrates,"  "concentrates"  and  "coarse  foods."  All 
this  in  most  cases  is  so  much  Greek.  I  have  talked  with  many 
intelligent  poultry  keepers,  but  have  rarely  found  one  who  could 
tell  why  he  fed  as  he  did,  apart  from  the  fact  that  his  ration  had 
justified  itself  in  experience.  And  yet  a  little  knowledge  of  the 
elementary  principles  of  scientific  feeding  may  be  of  great  value. 
It  will  enable  a  man  to  feed  more  economically,  as  he  can  often 
substitute  for  a  high-priced  food  one  much  lower  in  price,  and 
also  to  feed  so  that  he  can  secure  the  results  he  is  after  without 
loss  of  time  or  waste  in  any  way.  It  is  my  purpose  in  this  chap- 
ter to  make  the  matter  of  foods  and  feeding  so  simple  that  any- 
one can  understand  it. 

PROTEIDS— THINGS    THAT    BUILD    UP. 

The  food  that  is  eaten  has  three  functions  to  perform.  The 
first  is  to  build  up.  In  the  animal  body  a  process  of  waste  and 
repair  is  continually  going  on.  Old  tissues  are  breaking  down 
and  being  replaced  by  new  ones.  It  is  evident  that  if  an  exact 
balance  is  to  be  preserved  considerable  food  must  be  eaten.  But 
besides  this  process  of  waste  and  repair  another  process  may  be 
going  on — that  of  growth  and  manufacture.  In  the  chick,  for 
instance,  the  frame  is  being  built  up  rapidly,  the  feathers  are  com- 
ing out,  and  the  flesh  and  muscles  receive  their  daily  increment. 
In  the  laying  hen  the  egg  is  being  formed.  Now  there  are  cer- 
tain elements  in  the  food  that  is  taken  that  go  to  repair  the  waste 
and  build  up  the  body ;  they  also  enter  largely  into  the  manufac- 
tured product — the  milk  of  the  cow  and  the  egg  of  the  hen. 
These  elements  are  called  proteids.  They  are  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  the  life  and  health  of  the  animal,  and  must  be  furnished  in 
sufficient  quantities  or  decay  and  death  will  ensue. 


33 

CARBOHYDRATES— THINGS   THAT   WARM   UP. 

Besides  building  up  food  is  required  for  another  purpose — to 
warm  up.  The  temperature  of  the  human  body  is  98  degrees; 
that  of  the  hen's  body,  103  degrees.  To  maintain  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  body  food  must  be  burned  in  the  stomach  just  as  coal 
is  burned  in  the  furnace.  You  have  all  noticed  on  a  cold  day  in 
winter  how  difficult  it  is  to  keep  the  temperature  of  a  room  up  to 
70,  and  how  much  fuel  is  required  to  do  it.  And  yet  the  temper- 
ature of  the  body  must  be  kept  28  degrees  above  this,  or  the  result 
will  be  a  chill  from  which  we  may  never  recover. 

There  are  certain  elements  in  the  food  that  go  directly  to  the 
production  of  heat,  and  these  are  called  carbohydrates.  They 
include  sugar,  starch  and  gums  (sometimes  called  "nitrogen-free 
extract"),  and  the  cellulose  or  fibre  (the  coarse  or  woody  part 
of  a  plant)  which,  however,  is  indigestible.  The  cereals  are  espe- 
cially rich  in  carbohydrates.  We  sometimes  read  that  the  farm- 
ers in  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  in  years  when  the  corn  crop  is  exces- 
sive, use  corn  for  fuel ;  and  that  is  precisely  what  we  do  when  we 
feed  corn  to  our  hens  in  the  winter.  The  corn  is  the  fuel  which 
the  hen  burns  to  maintain  the  temperature  of  her  body  at  103. 
Such  being  the  case,  the  importance  of  a  warm,  snugly-built  house 
to  keep  down  fuel  bills  becomes  at  once  apparent. 

In  a  well  conducted  manufacturing  establishment  the  fuel 
that  is  burned  serves  a  double  purpose :  it  not  only  generates  the 
steam  that  warms  the  building,  but  it  also  generates  the  steam  that 
drives  the  machinery.  Perfectly  analogous  to  this  is  the  service 
rendered  by  the  food  elements  that  we  denominate  carbohydrates. 
They  not  only  keep  the  body  at  a  proper  temperature,  but  they 
also  furnish  the  energy  by  which  the  work  is  done. 

FATS— THINGS  THAT  ARE  STORED  UP. 
The  careful  and  prudent  head  of  a  household  is  not  content  to 
"live  from  hand  to  mouth,"  as  the  saying  is.  He  does  not  buy  his 
coal  from  day  to  day,  his  flour  a  few  pounds  at  a  time,  and  his 
vegetables  as  he  needs  them  to  use.  On  the  contrary  he  has  a 
well-stocked  cellar,  in  which  are  enough  supplies  to  last  for  some 
time.  The  thrifty  wage-earner  does  not  spend  quite  all  he  earns, 
but  saves  a  certain  amount  each  week  which  he  deposits  in  a  sav- 
ings bank  or  invests  in  life  insurance.  Nature,  our  thrifty  mother, 
is  not  content  that  her  children  shall  live  from  day  by  day; 
so  she  lays  by  a  reserve  from  which  they  can  draw  in  time  of  need. 


36 

This  reserve  is  the  fat  which  she  wraps  around  the  tissues  and 
with  which  she  encases  some  of  the  organs. 

There  is  one  very  curious  thing  that  is  true  of  the  different 
food  elements — they  can  take  the  place  of  each  other,  to  some 
extent.  This  is  not  true  of  the  proteids.  Nothing  can  take  their 
place.  But  it  is  true  of  the  carbohydrates  and  the  fats.  At  the 
New  York  State  Experiment  Station  a  cow  was  fed  for  95  days 
upon  food  from  which  the  fat  had  been  extracted  as  thoroughly 
as  possible.  In  spite  of  this  absence  of  food  fat  the  cow  contin- 
ued to  secrete  milk  similar  to  that  produced  on  a  normal  ration. 
Nearly  sixty-three  pounds  of  fat  was  yielded  in  the  milk  during 
the  ninety-five  days,  and  the  cow  gained  forty-seven  pounds  dur- 
ing that  time,  being  judged  a  much  fatter  cow  at  the  end  than  at 
the  beginning.  This  experiment  would  seem  to  be  conclusive 
that  the  milk  fat  was  produced  quite  largely,  if  not  entirely,  from 
the  carbohydrates  of  the  food.  On  the  other  hand,  so  well  is  it 
settled  that  fat  may  be  converted  into  carbohydrates,  that  it  is  the 
common  practice  to  multiply  the  fat  by  2.25  to  get  its  equivalent 
in  carbohydrates  in  making  up  an  equation. 

Besides  these  three  principal  food  elements  which  I  have  enu- 
merated there  are  subordinate  food  elements  as  follows :  Ash,  rep- 
resenting the  mineral  ingredients  after  a  food  is  burned.  These 
ashes  consist  of  lime,  potash,  soda,  magnesia,  iron,  phosphoric 
acid,  and  sulphuric  acid.  Water,  present  in  all  foods  to.  some 
extent.  Fibre  or  cellulose,  the  coarse  or  woody  part  of  a  plant 
(already  mentioned  under  the  head  of  carbohydrates,  but  more 
appropriately  coming  here). 

A    BALANCED    RATION.     WIDE    AND    NARROW 

RATIONS. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  frame  our  definitions.  A  bal- 
anced ration  is  a  ration  in  which  all  the  elements  required  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  animal  for  the  time  being  are  present  in  right 
proportion.  It  will  be  seen  by  this  definition  that  a  balanced 
ration  is  not  a  fixed  and  invariable  thing.  A  ration  that  is  cor- 
rectly balanced  for  chicks  is  not  balanced  for  laying  stock,  and  a 
ration  that  is  balanced  for  laying  stock  is  not  balanced  for  birds 
that  are  being  fattened  for  market.  It  has  been  found  by  experi- 
ence that  the  ration  1.2  (one  part  protein  to  two  parts  carbohy- 
drates) is  about  right  for  chicks;  the  ration  1.4  is  about  right  for 
laying  stock ;  and  the  ration  i  .6  is  about  right  for  fattening.  In 


37 

making  up  the  ration  the  ingredients  are  weighed,  not  measured, 
and  the  fat  is  multiplied  by  2.25  (or  2^)  to  reduce  it  to  carbo- 
hydrates. 

A  wide  ration  is  one  in  which  the  protein  is  largely  exceeded 
by  the  carbohydrates ;  a  narrow  ration  is  one  in  which  the  protein 
and  carbohydrates  are  more  nearly  equal.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
anything  exceeding  1 : 6  would  be  called  a  wide  ration,  and  any- 
thing under  it  a  narrow  one. 

SOME    THINGS    TO    BEAR    IN    MIND. 

The  reader  who  has  followed  me  carefully  will  see  how  abso- 
lutely impossible  it  is  to  feed  a  flock  of  hens  by  rule.  Common 
sense  must  come  in.  A  ration  that  would  be  correctly  balanced 
for  one  day  would  not  be  balanced  for  the  next.  For  instance, 
on  a  very  cold  day  in  winter  we  burn  twice  as  much  coal  to  keep 
warm  as  on  a  mild  day;  and  on  the  same  day  the  flock  would 
require  a  much  wider  ration  (more  carbohydrates  or  warming  up 
food)  than  on  a  mild  day  or  in  midsummer. 

Fortunately  the  hen  has  considerable  power  of  adjustment, 
and  so  survives  our  well-meaning  but  bungling  and  imperfect 
efforts  to  feed  her  scientifically.  If  we  do  not  feed  enough,  she 
draws  upon  her  reserve;  and  if  we  feed  too  much  she  has  the 
power  of  passing  the  excess  through  the  body  unassimilated.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  I  advocate  feeding  generously.  Nature  can 
take  care  of  a  surplus  if  it  is  not  too  great,  but  the  only  way  in 
which  she  can  meet  a  deficit  is  by  drawing  on  her  reserve. 

The  reader,  too,  will  now  see  why  it  is  that  one  poultryman 
feeds  one  way,  and  another  another,  and  both  have  good  results. 
The  principal  thing  is  to  get  your  ratios  with  succulent,  nutritious 
food;  and  if  you  do  this  your  hens  are  sure  to  respond  with  a 
goodly  output  of  eggs. 

GREEN    FOOD. 

What  is  the  value  of  green  food  in  the  daily  ration?  Its  great 
value  is  that  it  makes  it  more  digestible ;  it  lightens  up  the  ration 
and  makes  it  possible  for  the  gastric  juices  to  permeate  every 
particle.  Then,  too,  green  food  often  contains  certain  mineral 
salts  that  the  birds  need,  in  a  soluble  and  digestible  form.  Green 
food  should  form  a  portion  of  the  daily  bill  of  fare,  either  in  the 
mash  or  separately.  "In  the  winter  and  early  spring  months, 
mangel-wurzels,  if  properly  kept,  may  be  fed  to  good  advantage. 


38 

In  feeding  these  beets  to  flocks  of  hens  a  very  good  practice  is 
simply  to  split  the  root  lengthwise  with  a  large  knife.  The  fowls 
will  then  be  able  to  pick  out  all  the  fresh,  crisp  food  from  the 
exposed  cut  surface.  Cabbages  can  be  grown  cheaply  in  many 
localities  and  make  excellent  green  food  so  long  as  they  can  be 
kept  fresh  and  crisp.  Kale  and  beet  leaves  are  equally  as  good 
and  are  readily  eaten.  Sweet  apples  are  also  suitable,  and,  in  fact, 
almost  any  crisp,  fresh,  green  food  can  be  fed  with  profit.  The 
green  food,  in  many  instances,  may  be  cut  fine  and  fed  with  the 
soft  food,  but,  as  a  rule,  it  is  better  to  feed  separately  during  the 
middle  of  the  day,  in  such  quantities  that  the  fowls  have  about  all 
they  can  eat  at  one  time." 

CLOVER  AS  A  FOOD. 

Clover  is  the  green  food,  par  excellence.  Second-crop  clover 
is  best.  It  should  be  cut  just  as  it  is  coming  into  bloom,  or  a 
little  before,  when  there  is  a  profusion  of  tender  green  leaves 
and  the  stalks  have  not  become  woody  and  dry.  Great  care 
should  be  taken  in  curing  the  crop.  Clover  for  hens  should  be 
cut  into  short  lengths,  say  one-fourth  of  an  inch,  and  may  be  fed 
alone  at  noon.  Or  it  may  be  mixed  in  the  morning  mash  with 
boiling  water.  It  is  not  necessary  to  steep  it  over  night  as  some 
do.  Clover  meal  is  excellent,  but  somewhat  expensive. 


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3 


5 


40 


TABLE   SHOWING    COMPOSITION   AND   VALUATION   OF 
PRINCIPAL   FOODS. 


FOOD   STUFFS. 

Composition. 

Valua- 
tion. 

h 

& 

C3 

JS 
co 

<5 

a 
°3 

i 

& 

1 

£ 

§* 
II 

2J"1"1 

+1 
1 

o 
p-fl 

:!« 
$ 

Protein  Foods. 

7.0 
9.0 
9.0 
8.5 
9.5 
9.0 
8.0 
11.0 
8.0 
10.0 
10.0 
10.0 
10.0 
8.0 

1.3 

0.8 
6.7 
6.9 

14.0 
11.0 
9.0 
12.0 
13.0 
10.0 
10.0 
9.0 
8.0 
8.0 
7.0 

10.9 
10.5 
11.0 
10.9 
12.6 
11.6 
12.4 

87.2 
90.4 
90  6 

6.5 
5.3 
5.5 
5.2 
1.0 
0.9 
1.8 
5.8 
3.8 
3.2 
4.3 
5.3 
6.2 
3.6 

8.0 
2.2 
6.6 
24.5 

1.4 
1.4 
2.6 
3.3 
2.3 
3.0 
3.5 
3.2 
4.6 
4.1 
5.3 

1.5 
1.8 
3.0 
2.4 
2.0 
1.9 
0.4 

45.4 
38.3 
36.9 
34.6 
37.2 
343 
34.7 
27.1 
23.1 
19.4 
18.1 
17.1 
16.2 
18.3 

58.0 
57.4 
65.1 
22.3 

9.5 
89 
11.2 
11.4 
11.3 
9.1 
8.7 
12.5 
13.2 
11.5 
7.8 

10.4 
11.9 
11.8 
12.4 
10.0 
10.6 
13.0 

3.5 
3.1 
2.9 
3.9 

6.1 
8.8 
8.9 
8.6 
2.2 
2.2 
13.6 
11.9 
10.8 
3.2 
7.0 
8.4 
10.1 
12.7 

24.5 
36.2 
37.2 
36.8 
479 
51.6 
31.4 
42.6 
49.4 
59.4 
55.6 
54.6 
53.1 
53.4 

10.5 
2.4 
2.5 
6.3 
2.2 
2.0 
10.5 
1.6 
4.9 
4.8 
5.0 
4.6 
4.4 
4.0 

32.9 
39.6 
16.3 
16.5 

3.3 
36 
8.5 
3.8 
1.9 
3.2 
3.7 
3.4 
3.1 
4.6 
2.8 

5.0 
2.1 
5.0 
1.8 
2.2 
1.7 
23.6 

3.7 

0.8 
0.3 
1.0 

1:1.0 
1:  1.1 
1:1.1 
1:1.5 
1:1.4 
1:1.6 
1  :  1.6 
1:1.7 
1  :  2.1 
1  :  3.1 
1  :  3.7 
1  :  3.8 
1  :  3.9 
1  :  3.4 

1:1.3 

1  :  1.6 
1  :  0.6 
1  :  1.6 

1:8.1 
:8.5 
:7.4 
:6.1 
:6.2 
:7.9 
:8.2 
:5.6 
:4.6 
:6.1 
:8 

1:7.9 
1:6.3 
1  :  6.0 
1  :  6.0 
1:7 
1  :  7.2 
1:6 

1  :  3.8 
1:2 
1:2 
1:1.6 

Cleveland  flax  meal  

Linseed  meal  (new  process)  
Linseed  meal  (old  process)  

Biles  XXXX  grains  

Malt  Sprouts  

Wheat  middlings  (flour) 

Wheat  middling  (standard)  ....... 
Mixed  feed            

Wheat  bran  

H-O  dairy  feed 

Animal  Foods. 

Beef  Scrap 

Pork  Scrap  

Dried  blood  

5.3 

Green  bones  . 

Starchy  Foods. 

1.9 
6.7 
4.2 
8.7 
5.7 
10.0 
11.0 
9.8 
16.8 
11.4 
21.8 

1.9 
1.8 
9.5 
2.7 
8.7 
1.7 
0.2 

69.9 
68.4 
64.2 
60.8 
65.8 
'64.7 
63.1 
62.1 
54.3 
60.4 
55.3 

70.3 
71.9 
59.7 
69.8 
64.5 
72.5 
23.9 

4.8 
4.7 
5.2 
4.0 

Corn  and  cob  meal  

Ground  oats  • 

Corn  and  oat  feed. 

Victor  corn  and  oat  feed  

H-O  horse  feed  

Quaker  dairy  feed  

Shumacher's  stock  feed  

Oat  feed  (average)  

Cereals. 
Corn  

Wheat  

Oats  

Barley  

Rye  

Rice  

Milk. 
Whole  milk  

Skim  milk,  raised  
Skim  milk,  separated  





Buttermilk  

90  1 

CHAPTER  VI. 


EGGS  IN  FALL  AND  WINTER. 


Unless  a  man  breeds  fancy  fowls  and  has  a  good  market  in  the 
spring  for  eggs  for  hatching,  the  gilt-edged  profits  come  from 
eggs  produced  in  late  fall  and  early  winter.  There  is  no  com- 
modity that  I  know  anything  about  where  the  price  fluctuates  so 
much  in  the  course  of  a  year  as  it  does  on  eggs.  In  the  local 
market  eggs  range  in  price  from  12  to  15  cents  in  April  and  May 
to  30  to  40  cents  around  Thanksgiving.  In  spite  of  all  that  has 
been  written  and  said  about  eggs  in  the  late  fall  and  early  win- 
ter, there  is  always  a  shortage  about  this  time ;  and  there  is  likely 
to  be  for  years  to  come. 

The  reason  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  get  eggs  in  late  fall  or  early 
winter  is  that  it  is  against  Nature.  The  primary  object  of  a  bird 
in  laying  eggs  is  not  to  please  the  palate  of  the  epicure  or  add  to 
the  profits  of  the  owner,  but  to  reproduce  her  kind.  Now  it  is  a 
universal  law  that  all  creatures  in  a  wild  state  bring  forth  their 
young  at  that  season  of  the  year  when  food  is  most  abundant. 
The  hen  has  been  domesticated  for  more  than  thirty  centuries,  but 
back  of  this  is  a  period  of  much  greater  extent  when  she  was  wild. 

No  artificial  breeding  or  habitat  can  ever  completely  eradicate 
aboriginal  instincts.  The  natural  time  for  a  hen  to  lay  is  in  the 
spring  and  early  summer.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  in  work- 
ing for  eggs  in  fall  and  early  winter  we  are  working  against 
Nature,  and  can  never  hope  for  that  complete  success  that  we  may 
expect  when  we  are  working  with  Nature  and  Nature  is  work- 
ing with  us. 

WINTER  EGGS  COME  FROM  PULLETS. 
Eggs  in  the  fall  and  winter  come  principally  from  pullets. 
At  Thanksgiving  time,  when  eggs  are  at  their  maximum,  the 
hens  have  not  fully  recovered  from  their  moult.  They  may  lay 
a  few  eggs,  but  nothing  great.  Those  who  get  winter  eggs  in 
large  quantities  are  those  who  follow  the  advice  of  this  book  and 
plan  to  have  at  least  two-thirds  of  their  laying  stock  pullets.  But 
not  every  pullet  is  a  kyer.  It  is  only  those  that  are  well  grown 
and  have  been  handled  right  that  are  now  giving  a  good  account 


42 

of  themselves.  The  first  great  rule  for  winter  eggs  is  as  follows : 
Get  out  your  chicks  early  and  keep  them  coming  from  the  day 
they  break  the  she'll  down  to  the  day  they  go  into  the  laying  pens 
in  the  fall. 

AMERICAN   BREEDS   BEST. 

The  breed  has  something  to  do  with  it.  As  a  rule  the  Amer- 
ican breeds  are  the  best  winter  layers.  I  know  that  this  state- 
ment will  be  challenged,  and  that  instances  will  be  given  where 
the  Mediterraneans  or  Asiatics  have  equalled  or  surpassed  the 
Americans  in  egg  production ;  but  the  statement  will  stand.  The 
Mediterraneans  are  thin  feathered  and  are  very  susceptible  to 
climatic  conditions.  A  sudden  cold  snap  will  often  cause  the 
egg  product  to  drop  to  zero.  The  Asiatics,  on  the  other  hand, 
are  thick  feathered,  but  slow  in  maturing — they  do  not  get  ready 
to  lay  until  well  on  towards  spring.  The  man  who  wants  winter 
eggs  will  make  no  mistake  if  he  fills  his  pens  with  well  matured 
pullets  of  the  American  class. 

A  WARM  HOUSE  ESSENTIAL. 

In  olden  times  hens  were  not  expected  to  lay  in 
winter.  No  wonder  they  did  not!  They  were  not 
hatched  out  until  June,  and  were  expected  to  pick  up 
their  living  in  the  fields.  After  it  become  too  cold  for  them  to 
roost  in  trees  they  were  allowed  to  stay  in  the  barn  nights,  roost- 
ing on  the  big  beams,  or  were  thrust  down  into  the  noisome  barn 
cellar.  A  few  handfuls  of  corn  were  thrown  down  to  them  from 
time  to  time,  and  if  they  wanted  to  quench  their  thirst  they  could 
eat  snow  or  break  the  ice  in  the  horse  trough.  It  is  a  marvel  they 
ever  lived  through  the  winter,  to  say  nothing  of  laying  eggs. 
Even  to-day,  when  poultry  keeping  is  so  much  better  understood, 
the  importance  of  a  warm  house  is  not  half  enough  appreciated. 

The  West  Virginia  Experiment  station  a  few  years  ago  scien- 
tifically demonstrated  the  importance  of  a  warm  house  in  the  pro- 
duction of  winter  eggs.  "Two  houses  situated  side  by  side  and 
similar  in  all  respects  were  selected  for  the  experiment.  The 
houses  had  been  constructed  with  matched  siding  and  shingle 
roofs.  Before  the  experiment  began,  one  house  was  sheathed  on 
the  inside  with  boards  and  then  thoroughly  papered  so  as  to  cover 
all  the  cracks.  The  experiment  began  November  24th,  and  con- 
tinued for  five  periods  of  30  days  each.  The  two  flocks  were  fed 


43 

the  same  kind  and  amount  of  food.  The  total  number  of  eggs- 
produced  per  TOO  hens  in  the  warm  house  was  5,239,  while  in  the 
cold  house  100  hens  laid  but  4,136  eggs  in  the  same  time,,  a  bal- 
ance in  favor  of  the  warm  house  flock  of  1,103  eg£s  worth  in  the 
local  market  24  cents  per  dozen,  or  $22.06.  It  is  thus  seen  that 
the  additional  expense  for  increasing  the  warmth  of  the  house 
was  a  very  profitable  investment." 

FEEDING  FOR  WINTER  EGGS. 

Readers  of  the  preceding  chapter  of  this  book  will  need  no- 
special  instruction  in  the  production  of  winter  eggs,  but  it  will  do 
no  harm  to  repeat  the  substance  of  what  I  have  said.  To  get 
eggs  in  winter,  or,  indeed,  at  any  season  of  the  year,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  feed  generously.  One  cannot  get  something  for  nothing,, 
and  if  one  is  to  get  plenty  of  eggs  from  his  hens  he  must  supply 
them  with  the  raw  materials  for  egg  making.  "Overcrowding 
and  underfeeding  are  two  serious  hindrances  to  a  good  egg  yield ; 
but  underfeeding  is  by  far  the  more  serious  "hindrance  to  a  profit- 
able winter's  work  with  the  layers."  So  the  second  great  rule  for 
winter  eggs  is:  Give  plenty  of  good  wholesome  food  and  give 
variety,  if  you  want  winter  layers. 

EGG   FOODS   AND  TONICS. 

The  question  comes  up  in  this  connection  as  to  the  expediency 
of  using  egg  foods  and  tonics  where  winter  eggs  are  wanted.  On 
the  one  hand  there  are  some  who  recommend  their  use;  on  the 
other  there  are  those  who  unqualifiedly  condemn.  Theoretically,. 
I  suppose,  it  is  better  not  to  use  them ;  but,  actually,  they  may  be 
used  occasionally  to  good  advantage.  I  suppose  it  would  be  bet- 
ter for  a  man  never  to  overwork,  but  to  consume  each  day  only  so- 
much  energy  as  he  made.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  come 
occasions  into  the  life  of  every  busy  man  when  he  is  compelled  to- 
work  1 6  or  1 8  hours  at  a  stretch,  day  after  day,  and  draw  upon 
his  reserve.  Nature  allows  him  to  do  this,  but  only  on  condition- 
that  he  make  up  the  deficit  as  soon  as  he  can.  Nature  is  like  a 
bank  that  allows  a  good  customer  occasionally  to  overdraw.  It 
will  do  no  harm  to  stimulate,  a  healthy,  well-grown  bird  a  little 
when  eggs  are  high ;  but  to  use  stimulants  and  condition  powders 
habitually  is  to  defeat  the  very  purpose  for  which  they  are  made — 
they  either  kill  the  hen  or  she  becomes  immune  and  no  longer 
responds. 


44 

$100.00  in  GOLD :  HOW  MR.  S.  D.  FOX  WON  IT. 

Some  years  ago  the  manufacturers  of  a  well-known  condition 
powder  advertised  a  "Gold  Coin  Premium  Contest/'  for  the  best 
egg  record  during  the  winter  months,  in  which  $200.00, in  gold 
was  to  be  given  to  16  contestants.  There  was  one  first  prize  of 
$100.00,  five  prizes  of  $10.00  each,  and  ten  prizes  of  $5.00  each. 
The  contest  was  open  to  the  world.  The  conditions  were  that 
each  contestant  must  keep  not  less  than  12  hens,  must  buy  at  least 
one  dollar's  worth  of  condition  powder,  and  must  make  a  full  four 
months'  trial.  The  time  for  the  close  of  the  contest  was  set  at 
April  i.  The  first  prize  was  won  by  Mr.  S.  D.  Fox  of  Wolfeboro, 
N.  H.  Unfortunately  Mr.  Fox  kept  no  records  other  than  those 
he  sent  in,  and  in  a  general  clearing  up  of  the  central  office  a  short 
time  since  all  records  relating  to  the  contest  were  destroyed. 
Consequently  I  am  unable  to  give  the  figures,  but  it  may  be 
enough  to  state  that  out  of  hundreds  of  contestants  Mr.  Fox 
won  the  first  prize.  I-  will  give  his  methods,  as  nearly  as  possible 
in  his  own  words. 

"That  fall,"  said  Mr.  Fox,  "I  had  a  master  fine  lot  of  hens, — 
White  Wyandottes,  with  just  a  dash  of  Leghorn  blood  in  'em  to 
make  'em  lay.  They  were  hatched  early,  and  I  began  to  get  eggs 
from  them  in  October.  When  I  saw  the  contest  advertised  I 
thought  I  would  enter.  I  didn't  expect  to  get  the  first  prize,  but 
thought  possibly  I  might  get  one  of  the  others.  So  I  bought  a 
dollar's  worth  of  condition  powder  of  C.  W.  Hicks,  who  then 
kept  the  Wolfeboro  Drug  Store,  and  started  in.  I  remembered 
reading  in  an  old  book  the  following  sentence :  'There  is  nothing 
that  will  make  hens  lay  equal  to  cayenne  pepper  and  milk.'  I  had 
a  cow  that  came  in  that  fall,  which  was  giving  about  16  quarts  of 
milk  a  day.  I  made  up  a  pen  of  20  of  the  likeliest  looking  pullets, 
and  started  in.  I  fed  them  in  the  morning  a  mash  made  of  equal 
parts  of  corn  meal,  ground  oats,  and  bran.  I  didn't  know  any- 
thing about  meat  meal  or  ground  bone  in  those  days,  and  so  I 
put  in  instead  a  handful  of  linseed  meal  and  what  scraps  we  had 
left  from  the  table.  I  mixed  this  mash  up  with  warm  skim  milk. 
Two  or  three  times  a  week  I  shook  into  the  milk  a  teaspoonful  of 
cayenne  pepper.  I  gave  the  hens  all  the  mash  they  would  eat  up 
clean.  At  noon  I  fed  oats,  and  at  night  corn.  I  gave  the  hens 
all  the  milk  they  would  take.  I  gave  it  to  'em  sweet;  I  gave  it 
to  'em  sour;  I  gave  it  to  'em  in  the  form  of  curd.  There  were 
days  when  they  had  no  water — nothing  but  milk.  Lay?  You 


45 

never  saw  anything  like  it !  I  wish  I  could  remember  how  many 
they  laid.  Anyway  they  laid  enough  to  bring  me  the  first  prize 
of  $100.00.  Give  me  cayenne  pepper  and  skim  milk,  and  I'll  risk 
but  what  I  can  make  hens  lay  every  time." 

MR.   FOX'S   HEN   PERSUADER. 

"I  can  give  you  a  receipt  for  an  egg  food  and  tonic  that  will 
do  the  business,"  said  Mr.  Fox.  "I  sent  off  once  for  an  egg  food 
that  was  highly  advertised,  and  the  first  thing  I  knew  it  had  killed 
five  hens.  No,  I  guess  I  won't  give  you  the  name.  Maybe  I  was 
a  little  too  anxious  to  have  'em  lay,  and  fed  too  much  of  it.  But 
this  one  I  can  vouch  for.  It  is  the  greatest  hen  persuader  I  know 
anything  about.  I  fed  it  one  winter  to  72  hens,  and  one  day  got 
68  eggs.  Five  days  in  succession  from  the  same  flock  I  got  64 
eggs.  Take  ten  pounds  bone  meal,  ten  pounds  beef  scraps,  five 
pounds  fenugreek,  two  pounds  sulphur,  two  pounds  charcoal,  one- 
half  pound  cayenne  pepper,  one-half  pound  salt.  Mix  and  keep. 
Put  a  half  pint  in  the  mash  every  morning,  for  20  hens.  When 
you  feed  this  egg  food,  feed  no  meat  meal  or  meat  scraps,  and 
do  not  salt  the  mash.  You  will  get  the  mixture  right  if  you 
remember  that  the  combined  weight  of  the  ingredients  is  30 
pounds.  It  costs  about  a  dollar  and  a  half  to  make  it." 

TO  START  PULLETS  TO  LAYING  IN  THE  FALL. 

When  pullets  are  old  enough  to  lay  and  do  not  lay  they  need 
some  slight  shock  or  change  to  start  them  in.  The  majority  of 
those  who  rear  chickens  give  them  free  range,  or  as  near  free 
range  as  possible,  during  the  summer  months.  This  is  correct. 
But  after  they  get  their  growth  their  energies  need  to  be  directed 
to  egg  production  and  not  run  off  in  useless  exercise.  Accord- 
ingly as  early  as  October  1st — if  not  before — the  pullets  should  be 
taken  from  the  range  and  put  into  the  laying  houses.  Here  their 
range  should  be  restricted.  More  meat  meal  or  ground  bone  may 
be  advantageously  introduced  into  their  ration,  and  a  stimulant 
may  be  given  in  the  shape  of  cayenne  pepper  or  condition  powder. 
This  treatment  soon  induces  egg  production,  if  they  are  of  the 
"bred-to-lay"  kind. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  SEX  ELEMENT  IN  EGG  PRODUCTION. 


Why  do  hens  lay  at  all?  This  is  the  most  momentous  ques- 
tion that  confronts  the  poultryman.  If  he  can  answer  the  ques- 
tion correctly  he  is  in  a  position  to  proceed  intelligently  and  sys- 
tematically with  egg  production.  Jf  he  cannot  answer  it,  or  has 
never  even  thought  of  it,  he  is  in  no  condition  to  get  a  large  and 
uniform  egg  yield.  He  may  make  a  hit  occasionally,  but  there 
will  be  years  when  eggs  will  be  few  and  far  between. 

It  is  evident  to  the  most  casual  observer  that  hens  do  not  lay 
for  their  own  amusement — for  the  fun  it  gives  them.  Anyone 
who  has  ever  watched  a  hen  straining  to  discharge  an  egg,  or  who 
has  taken  an  egg  out  of  a  nest  blood  stained  from  some  internal 
hemorrhage,  must  realize  that  the  passage  of  an  egg  by  a  hen  is 
not  for  her  altogether  an  agreeable  operation.  Doubtless  there  is 
a  sense  of  relief  when  the  egg  is  expelled — but  so  there  is  when  a 
man  has  had  an  ulcerated  tooth  extracted.  Nor  do  hens  lay  to 
.add  to  the  profits  of  their  owner.  It  is  a  common  complaint,  and 
one  in  which  there  is  a  good  deal  of  truth,  that  hens  lay  only  when 
eggs  are  cheap  and  shut  down  when  they  are  dear!  No,  hens 
•do  not  lay  for  fun  or  to  add  to  the  bank  account  of  their  owner ; 
they  lay  for  an  altogether  different  purpose. 

Implanted  in  the  core  and  center  of  every  living  thing  is  the 
desire  to  reproduce  its  kind.  It  seems  to  be  the  design  of  nature 
that  the  species  shall  be  perpetuated  at  any  cost.  "Multiply  and 
replenish  the  earth"  is  a  command  addressed  to  plants,  animals 
and  birds  as  well  as  to  man.  So  imperious  is  this  instinct  of 
reproduction,  so  irresistible,  that  some  of  the  lower  orders  prop- 
agate at  the  cost  of  their  own  lives. 

The  hen  lays  to  gratify  the  imperious  instinct  of  reproduc- 
tion. In  her  wild  state  the  hen  lays  from  six  to  ten  eggs  a  year. 
:She  lays  them  in  some  secluded  nook  in  the  jungle,  that  she  may 
rear  her  little  brood.  If  it  were  not  for  this  instinct  of  reproduc- 
tion the  hen  would  never  lay.  We  have  taken  this  instinct  of 
reproduction,  stimulated  it  so  that  the  domestic  fowl  now  lays 
from  ten  to  twentyfold  as  many  eggs  as  her  aboriginal  ancestress ; 
but  have  largely  forgotten,  if  we  ever  knew,  that  it  is  the  presence 
-of  this  instinct  that  makes  egg  production  possible. 


47 

CONDITIONS     OF    REPRODUCTION. 
What  are  the  conditions  of  reproduction?     They  are  five,  and 
they  are  as  follows: 

1.  Maturity.     The  animal,  bird  or  plant  must  be  in  the  inter- 
mediate state  between  growth  and  decay.     The  desire  for  repro- 
duction is  greater  at  the  beginning  of  this  intermediate  state,  and 
steadily  declines  towards  its  end.     This  is  why  a  fowl  will  lay 
more  eggs  the  first  year  after  coming  to  maturity  than  in  any 
subsequent  year  of  her  life. 

2.  Vitality.     Reproduction  draws  upon  the  vital  forces  as 
does  no  other  act.     This  is  why  the  bird  feels  a  desire  to  incubate 
.after  her  litter  is  completed— she  needs  rest.     The  broody  hen 
should  be  treated  with  great  consideration,  and  not  ruthlessly 
abused,  as  is  too  often  the  case.     The  immediate  effect  of  disease 
or  injury  is  to  weaken  the  desire  for  reproduction.     A  sick  hen  is 
not  a  laying  hen. 

3.  Nutrition.     The  animal,  bird  or  plant  must  be  well  fed. 
Darwin  makes  nutrition  the  principal  factor  in  reproduction.     He 
says:     "With   hardly   an   exception   our   domesticated   animals, 
which  have  long  been  habituated  to  a  regular  and  copious  supply 
of  food,  without  the  labor  of  searching  for  it,  are  more  fertile 
than  the  corresponding  wild  animals.  The  amount  of  food  affects 
the  fertility  of  even  the  same  individual ;  thus  sheep,  which  on 
mountains  never  produce  more  than  one  lamb  to  a  birth,  when 
brought  down  to  lowland  pastures,  frequently  bear  twins.     As 
Mr.   Dixon  has  remarked,   "High   feeding,   care  and  moderate 
warmth  induce  a  habit  of    profligacy   which    becomes    in    some 
measure  hereditary."     (Animals  and  Plants  Under  Domestica- 
tion, vol.  ii,  chap,  xvi.) 

4.  Sanitation.     Sanitation   profoundly   affects   vitality,   and 
without  sanitation  the  other  conditions  cannot  produce  their  full 
effect.     The  hen  house  should  be  kept  perfectly  clean,  the  birds 
free  from  parasites ;  they  should  not  be  crowded,  and  should  be 
supplied  with  everything  necessary  to  comfort  and  health. 

5.  Sex.     In  the  very  lowest  forms  of  life  reproduction  is 
asexual — that  is,  the  new  life  is  produced  not  by  the  coming 
together  of  male  and  female,  but  by  fission  or  cleavage  from  the 
parent  organism.     But  all  higher  animals  and  plants  are  repre- 
sented by  distinct  male  and  female  forms,  and  the  more  com- 
pletely each  form  is  sexed  the  greater  its  power  of  reproducing  its 
kind. 


48 

THE  SEX  ELEMENT  IN  REPRODUCTION. 

The  importance  of  the  sex  element  in  reproduction  has  never 
been  fully  understood.  Splendid  work  is  being  done  at  experi- 
ment stations  and  by  independent  investigators  in  the  study  of 
the  domestic  fowl.  The  trap  nest  has,  enabled  us  to  select  the 
hens  that  lay  the  most  eggs,  and  to  breed  from  them.  Nutrition 
has  been  studied,  until  we  can  feed  with  almost  mathematical  cer- 
tainty; but  the  study  of  sex  has  been  neglected.  It  may  be  that 
the  study  of  sex  requires  a  knowledge  of  physiology  and  biology 
that  is  lacking  in  the  case  of  most  poultrymen;  but  it  is 'here  that 
the  richest  field  lies,  and  when  a  man  has  mastered  the  subject  of 
sex  he  is  in  a  condition  to  obtain  a  large  and  uniform  egg  yield 
with  the  minimum  amount  of  cost  and  labor. 

BREED   FROM  THE  BEST   SEXED   BIRDS. 

The  great  secret  of  large  and  uniform  egg  production  I  believe 
to  be  this:  Breed  from  the  best  sexed  birds!  Poultry  writers  are 
reviving  the  old  question  as  to  whether  or  not  there  is  an  egg" 
type.  I  am  inclined  to  think  there  is.  But  the  egg  type  that  I 
care  most  about  is  one  based  on  sex.  The  male  that  is  the  most 
distinctly  male  and  the  female  that  is  the  most  distinctly  female 
are  the  birds  for  me. 

By  keeping  this  principle  in  mind  I  have  succeeded  in  building 
up  a  strain  of  birds  that  are  splendid  layers.  I  do  not  use  the 
trap  nest,  and  so  am  not  able  to  give  individual  records.  I  did 
have  a  bird  once  that  laid  an  egg  that  allowed  me  to  keep  tab  on 
her  as  accurately  as  if  I  had  used  the  trap  nest.  From  some 
peculiarity  of  the  ovaries  the  egg  had  a  ring  around  it  about  one- 
third  of  the  distance  from  the  smaller  to  the  larger  end ;  it  was 
ivory  white  in  color  and  of  medium  size.  It  was  such  an  egg  as 
I  could  not  very  well  mistake.  In  14  months  and  10  days  more 
than  300  of  these  eggs  appeared.  The  hen  then  became  broody, 
and  I  foolishly  allowed  her  to  sit.  After  she  had  completed  the 
process  of  incubation  and  weaned  her  chicks,  so  much  time  had 
been  lost  that  I  did  not  attempt  to  keep  tab  upon  her  again.  I 
have  given  up  pushing  my  hens  for  big  egg  production,  but  take 
what  comes  along.  When  conditions  are  right  I  get  from  150  to 
200  eggs  a  year  apiece  from  my  best  layers  and  with  that  I  am 
satisfied. 


49 

HOW  I  APPLY  THE  PRINCIPLE  OF  SEX  SELECTION. 

And  now  I  will  tell  the  readers  of  this  chapter  how  I  apply  the 
principle  of  sex  selection.  I  keep  a  close  watch  over  my  chicks 
from  the  day  they  break  the  shell,  and  as  soon 
as  one  shows  its  sex  that  chick  is  marked  so  that  I  can  tell  it 
afterwards.  When  the  chicks  are  three  months  old  the 
first  separation  is  made;  males  and  females  are  sepa- 
rated, and  the  chicks  that  showed  their  sex  first  are  taken  from 
the  rest.  This  gives  me  four  flocks.  From  the  chicks  in  which 
the  sex  element  first  manifested  itself  I  expect  to  get  my  best 
layers.  When  it  is  time  to  put  the  birds  in  the  winter  quarters 
another  separation  is  made — the  birds  that  show  they  are  nearest 
ready  to  lay  are  put  in  pens  by  themselves.  (I  do  not  care  for 
precocious  pullets,  but  when  pullets  have  had  time  to  mature  the 
ones  that  are  nearest  ready  to  lay  are  in  my  judgment  the  best 
pullets.)  The  final  selection  for  the  breeding  pens  is  made  when 
birds  are  about  18  months  old — the  ones  which  moult  the  earliest 
and  most  rapidly  being  selected  for  breeders.  Thus  by  a  consistent 
application  of  the  principle  of  sex  selection  I  get  my  strain. 

With  the  males  the  same  principle  is  applied.  The  birds  that 
show  their  sex  the  earliest  and  the  most  strongly  are  reserved, 
and  the  others  are  killed  and  sent  to  the  market.  Any  judge  will 
tell  you  that  "good  wattles  are  a  sign  of  a  good  bird."  But 
besides  having  good  wattles  a  breeding  cockerel  should  have  other 
qualities:  he  should  be  vigorous,  alert,  courageous,  well  grown, 
with  decided  protuberances  on  his  shanks  where  later  the  spurs 
are  to  be.  In  other  words,  he  should  be  strongly  sexed. 

I  believe  that  anyone  who  will  consistently  and  intelligently 
follow  out  the  suggestions  given  in  this  chapter  will  see  his  egg 
yield  steadily  improve,  and  that  in  three  breeding  seasons,  with 
comparatively  little  trouble,  he  will  get  the  2OO-egg  hen. 

THE  LAW  OF  SEX :  MALES  OR  FEMALES  AT  WILL. 
One  of  the  most  interesting  problems  that  confronts  the  biol- 
ogist is  that  of  sex.  What  are  the  conditions  that  produce  a  male 
organism  and  what  the  conditions  that  produce  a  female  ?  It  is 
obvious  that  in  a  world  where  everything  is  by  law  sex  is  not  by 
chance,  but  what  the  law  is  we  do  not  fully  know.  Still  many 
facts  have  been  gathered,  and  we  are  nearing  the  goal.  The  poul- 
try business  offers  a  peculiarly  favorable  field  for  investigation. 
When  you  reflect  that  perfect  organisms  may  be  produced  in  any 


50 

i 

number  in  the  short  space  of  21  days,  that  the  parent  fowls  may 
be  kept  under  such  conditions  as 'the  investigator  may  wish  and 
that  these  conditions  may  be  varied  at  will,  that  the  embryo  may 
be  followed  through  all  the  stages  of  its  development, — you  real- 
ize at  once  what  a  field  the  poultry  business  presents  for  a  study 
of  the  problem  of  sex,  and  the  business  takes  on  a  new  dignity 
and  interest. 

Some  very  important  facts  bearing  on  sex  have  been  gathered. 
The  point  on  which  investigators  are  more  fully  agreed  is  that 
nutrition  has  a  profound  influence  upon  sex.  Beginning  with 
insects  it  has  been  found  that  if  caterpillars  are  starved  before 
entering  the  chrysalis  state  the  resultant  butterflies  or  moths  are 
males,  while  others  of  the  same  brood  highly  nourished  are 
females.  With  bees,  too,  the  relation  between  nutrition  and  sex 
seems  equally  well  established.  Experiments  with  tadpoles, 
which  were  supplied  with  a  diet  steadily  increasing  in  sumptuous- 
ness,  showed  a  steady  and  corresponding  increase  in  the  number 
of  females  produced.  The  proportion  of  females  to  males,  which 
was  originally  57  to  43,  rose  steadily  as  the  diet  became  more  and 
more  highly  nutritious,  until  out  of  100  tadpoles  92  were  females 
and  8  males.  Coming  up  in  the  scale  of  life  it  has  been  found 
that  among  mammals  the  same  principle  holds,  although  of  course 
other  influences  come  in  more  than  among  the  lower  orders. 

Another  feature  that  is  believed  to  have  an  influence  upon  sex 
is  the  time  of  impregnation.  The  fresher  the  ovum  when  fertil- 
ized the  greater  the  likelihood  that  the  offspring  will  be  a  female. 
If  this  conclusion  is  correct  eggs  laid  at  the  beginning  of  a  litter 
should  hatch  a  larger  proportion  of  pullets  than  eggs  laid  later. 

The  relative  age  of  the  parents  is  believed  to  affect  the  sex. 
Where  the  male  parent  is  the  older  the  offspring  are  preponder- 
atingly  male ;  and  where  the  ages  are  even,  or  where  the  mother 
is  the  superior  in  age,  the  preponderance  is  the  other  way.  I  find 
that  this  is  a  theory  quite  generally  held.  I  sometimes  receive 
letters  from  would-be  purchasers  asking  for  eggs  from  hens 
mated  with  cockerels.  It  is  a  theory  very  easy  to  test,  and  the 
reader  should  give  it  a  trial  in  his  yards." 

Temperature  is  also  a  feature  to  be  reckoned  with.  I  have 
noticed  in  my  own  yards  that  in  the  cold  months  the  proportion 
of  pullets  hatched  is  smaller  than  it  is  later  in  the  season.  Take 
the  plant  lice  which  multiply  so  rapidly  upon  the  rose-bushes, 
fruit-trees,  and  the  like,  and  which  are  known  to  science  as 


51 

aphides.  "During  the  warmth  of  summer,  when  food  is  abund- 
dant,  these  insects  produce  parthenogenetically  nothing  but 
females,  while  in  the  famines  of  later  autumn  they  give  birth  to 
males.  In  striking  confirmation  of  this  fact  it  has  been  proved 
that  in  a  Conservatory  where  aphides  enjoy  perpetual  summer, 
the  parthenogenetic  successsion  of  female  continued  to  go  on  for 
four  years,  and  stopped  only  when  the  temperature  was  lowered 
and  food  diminished." 

In  my  own  experiments  and  observations  I  have  found  sev- 
eral things  influencing  sex  that  I  have  not  found  mentioned  by 
the  authorities.  One  of  these  is  affinity.  I  have  found  that 
where  there  is  perfect  affinity  and  the  birds  are  happy  and  con- 
tented, the  conditions  are  right  for  the  production  of  females ;  but 
where  the  birds  are  not  well  mated  and  frequent  quarrels  ensue 
the  offspring  are  likely  to  be  largely  males.  Another  thing  is 
freedom  from  disturbance  and  fear.  Where  hens  are  kept  stirred 
up  by  the  presence  of  strangers  or  shifted  frequently  from  place 
to  place  their  eggs  are  quite  sure  to  hatch  an  excess  of  males. 
The  quieter  you  can  keep  your  hens  the  more  pullets  you  will  get.. 

The  greater  the  number  of  females  to  a  male  the  more  pullets. 
I  know  a  man  who  mated  two  roosters  to  118  hens,  and  out  of 
135  chickens  hatched  107  were  females. 

Now  let  me  sum  up  all  that  has  been  said  in  the  language  of 
another :  "Such  conditions  as  deficient  or  abnormal  food,  low  tem- 
perature, deficient  light,  moisture  and  the  like,  are  obviously  such 
as  would  tend  to  induce  a  preponderance  of  waste  over  repair, — a 
katabolic  habit  of  body— and  these  conditions  tend  to  result  in 
the  production  of  males.  Similarly,  the  approved  set  of  factors, 
such  as  abundant  and  rich  nutrition,  abundant  light  and  moisture, 
favor  constructive  processes,  that  is,  make  for  an  anabolic  habit, 
and  these  conditions  result  in  the  production  of  females.  With 
some  element  of  uncertainty  we  may  also  include  the  influence  of 
the  age  and  of  physiological  prime  of  either  sex,  and  of  the  period 
of  fertilization.  But  the  general  conclusion  is  tolerably  secure, 
that  in  the  determination  of  sex  influences  inducing  katdbotisnt 
(or  waste)  tend  to  result  in  the  production  of  males,  as  those 
favoring  anabolisrn  (or  repair)  similarly  increase  the  probability 

of  females." 

This  is  the  law  of  sex,  so  far  as  it  can  be  stated  at  present. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 


THE  TRAP  NEST  AND   ITS   USES. 

Within  the  past  few  years  the  outfit  of  the  poultryman  has 
been  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  the  trap  nest.  As  to  the  practi- 
cal value  of  these  nests  there  is  a  wide  difference  of  opinion :  on 
the  one  hand  they  are  enthusiastically  advocated;  on  the  other 
they  are  scornfully  condemned.  The  trap  nest  needs  a  judicial 
appraisal.  It  has  been  unfortunate  in  both  its  enemies  and  its 
friends.  Many  of  those  who  have  ridiculed  it  have  never  tried  it, 
and  those  who  have  advocated  it  have  too  often  been  those  who 
are  interested  in  it  in  a  financial  way. 

The  principle  on  which  the  invention  rests  is  that  of  the  influ- 
ence of  heredity.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  all  breeders  of  ani- 
mals that  desirable  traits  may  be  transmitted,  and  by  careful  mat- 
ing a  strain  may  be  permanently  established.  It  is  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge  that  in  the  poultry  world  some  of  the  most 
popular  breeds  of  to-day  have  been  made  within  a  comparatively 
recent  time  by  the  combination  of  individuals  of  different  varie- 
ties. It  would  seem  almost  axiomatic,  therefore,  that  if  one 
wishes  to  establish  a  heavy-laying  strain  he  must  breed  only  from 
heavy  layers.  In  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  told  how  these 
layers  may  be  picked  out.  But  there  is  always  the  possibility 
that  the  poultryman  may  be  mistaken.  The  trap  nest  box  may 
be  used  in  the  breeding  pen  for  a  time  at  least  to  supplement  the 
poultryman's  personal  observation.  It  is  not  necessary  to  use  it 
all  the  year  round,  or  to  use  it  in  all  the  pens ;  but  it  may  be  used 
at  times  in  certain  pens  to  good  advantage  to  ascertain  if  all  the 
hens  are  laying,  and  to  weed  out  hens  that  are  not  doing  so  well 
as  their  owners  think  they  ought,  and  hens  that  lay  small,  mis- 
shapen or  poorly-colored  eggs. 

The  fancier  also  may  make  good  use  of  the  trap  nest  in  the 
breeding  season,  to  enable  him  to  select  the  eggs  of  individual 
layers.  He  may  have  in  a  pen  a  hen  of  unusual  beauty  or  excel- 
lence, the  offspring  of  which  he  desires  to  keep  for  his  own  use. 
The  trap  nest  will  enable  him  to  pick  out  the  eggs  this  hen  lays, 
and  then  by  markings  on  the  feet  of  chicks  hatched  from  these 
eggs  it  is  easy  to  tell  them  from  the  rest. 


S3 

THE  GOWELL  TRAP  NEST. 

There  are  many  trap  nests  on  the  market.  The  right  to  use 
these  nests,  with  plans  for  their  construction,  costs  from  one  to 
three  dollars.  Through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  G.  M.  Gowell,  agri- 
culturist of  the  Maine  Experiment  Station,  I  am  able  to  present 
my  readers  with  the  plan  for  a  nest  box  free  of  charge.  The  nest 
box  here  described  was  made  by  Mr.  Gowell  after  a  careful  study 


Single  Nest  Box. 

of  the  various  nest  boxes  on  the  market,  and  is  intended  to  com- 
bine their  excellences  and  avoid  their  defects.  This  is  the  box 
that  is  illustrated  here,  and  the  description  of  it  is  in  Mr.  Gowell's 
own  words : 

"The  nest  box  is  very  simple,  inexpensive,  easy  to  attend,  and 
certain  in  its  action.  It  is  a  box-like  structure,  without  end  or 
cover;  and  is  twenty-eight  inches  long,  thirteen  inches  wide  and 


54 


thirteen  inches  deep — inside  measurements.  A  division  board 
with  a  circular  opening  seven  and  one-half  inches  in  diameter  is 
placed  across  the  box  twelve  inches  from  the  back  end  and  fifteen 
inches  from  the  front  end.  The  back  section  is  the  nest  proper. 
Instead  of  a  close  door  at  the  entrance,  a  light  frame  of  inch  by 
inch  and  half  stuff  is  covered  with  wire  netting  of  one  inch  mesh. 
The  door  is  ten  and  one-half  inches  wide  and  ten  inches  high  and 
does  not  fill  the  entire  entrance,  a  space  of  two  and  a  half  inches 
being  left  at  the  bottom  and  one  and  a  half  inches  at  the  top,  with 
a  good  margin  at  each  side  to  avoid  friction.  If  it  filled  the  entire 
space  it  would  be  clumsy  in  its  action.  It  is  hinged  at  the  top  and 
opens  up  into  the  box.  The  hinges  are  placed  on  the  front  of  the 
door  rather  than, at  the  center  or  back,  the  better  to  secure  com- 
plete closing  action. 

"The  trip  consists  of  one  piece  of  stiff  wire  about  three-six- 
teenths of  an  inch  in  diameter  and  eighteen  and  one-half  inches 

long,  bent  as  shown  in  drawing.  A 
piece  of  board  six  inches  wide  and  just 
£•  long  enough  to  reach  across  the  box 

inside  is  nailed  flatwise  in  front  of  the 
partition  and  one  inch  below  the  top  of 
the  box,  a  space  of  one-fourth  of  an  inch 
being  left  between  the  edge  of  the  board 
and  the  partition.  The  purpose  of  this 
board  is  only  to  support  the  trip  wire  in 
place.  The  six-inch  section  of  the  trip 
%  [fj  ^  wire  is  placed  across  the  board  and 

1  jj*  V  "***       the    long    part    of    the    wire    slipped 

\)  through    the    quarter    inch    slot,    and 

passed  down  close,  to  and  in  front  of  the 
center  of  the  seven  and  a  half  inch  cir- 
cular opening.  Small  wire  staples  are 
driven  nearly  down  over  the  six-inch 
section  of  the  trip  wire  into  the  board 
so  as  to  hold  it  in  place  and  yet  let  it  roll  sidewise  easily. 

"When  the  door  is  set,  the  half  inch  section  of  the  wire 
marked  A  comes  under  a  hard  wood  peg  or  a  tack  with  a  large 
round  head,  which  is  driven  into  the  lower  edge  of  the  door 
frame.  The' hen  passes  in  through  the  circular  opening  and  in 
doing  so  presses  the  wire  to  one  side,  and  the  trip  slips  from  its 
connection  with  the  door.  The  door  promptly  swings  down  and 


55 

fastens  itself  in  place  by  its  lower  edge  striking  the  light  end  of 
a  wooden  latch  or  lever,  pressing  it  down  and  slipping  over  it; 
the  lever  immediately  coming  back  into  place  and  locking  the  door. 
The  latch  is  five  inches  long,  one  inch  wide  and  a  half  inch  thick, 
and  is  fastened  loosely  one  inch  from  its  center  to  the  side  of  the 
box,  so  that  the  outer  end  is  just  inside  the  door  when  it  is  closed. 
The  latch  acts  quickly  enough  to  catch  the  door  before  it 
rebounds.  It  was  feared  that  the  noise  arising  from  the  closing 
of  the  door  might  startle  the  hens,  so  instead  of  wooden  stops 
pieces  of  old  rubber  belting  were  nailed  at  the  outside  entrances 
for  the  door  to  strike  against. 

"The  double  box  with  nest  in  the  rear  end  is  necessary,  as 
when  a  bird  has  laid  and  desires  to  leave  the  nest,  she  steps  to  the 
front  and  remains  there  until  released.  With  one  section  only, 
she  would  be  likely  to  crush  the  egg  by  standing  upon  it." 


Nest  Boxes  in  Position. 


CHAPTER   IX. 


BREEDING  FOR  TWO  HUNDRED  EGGS  A  YEAR. 


Most  of  our  domestic  animals  and  birds  are  descendants  of 
some  wild  prototype.  In  the  zoological  gardens  of  Hamburg  and 
New  York  are  living  specimens  of  the  primitive  wild  horse  of 
Central  Asia — funny,  big-headed  little  brutes  that  are  representa- 
tives of  some  type  of  horse  that  must  be  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  years  old.  Dogs  are  descendants  of  wolves  and  jackals  and 
perhaps  of  one  or  two  species  of  wild  dogs  that  have  become 
extinct.  Pigeons  trace  their  ancestry  back  to  the  rock  pigeon, 
which  has  a  vast  range  from  northern  and  eastern  Europe  to  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  Madeira  and  the  Canary  Islands, 
to  Abyssinia,  India  and  Japan. 

For  the  prototype  of  our  domestic  fowl  we  must  go  to  Asia, 
and  especially  to  northern  India  where  the  Himalayas  lift  their 
snowy  crests  far  up  into  the  sky.  Here  we  shall  find  a  bird  run- 
ning wild  through  the  dense  forests  and  jungles,  which  is  believed 
to  be  identical  with  the  parent  type  from  which  all  domestic  fowls 
have  come.  The  bird  closely  resembles  the  black-breasted  Indian 
Game,  with  which  we  are  all  familiar,  albeit  somewhat  smaller  in 
size  and  carrying  the  tail  more  horizontally.  From  this  bird  have 
come  all  the  varieties  of  our  domestic  fowls — the  stately  Spanish, 
the  crested  Polish,  the  lordly  Brahma,  the  elegant  Leghorn,  the 
practical  Plymouth  Rock,  the  snowy  Wyandotte  and  the  diminu- 
tive Bantam.  Natural  and  artificial  selection,  continued  for 
many  years,  has  created  all  these  differences. 

Even  more  remarkable  than  the  differences  in  plumage  and 
form  that  have  been  brought  about  by  breeding  is  the  difference 
in  egg  production.  Callus  Bankiva,  as  this  wild  jungle  fowl  is 
called,  lays  from  six  to  ten  eggs  a  year,  while  some  of  our  domes- 
tic fowls  have  been  known  to  lay  over  300.  This  vast  increase  in 
egg  production  has  been  brought  2 bout  by  improved  nutrition  and 
by  breeding  from  prolific  layers.  In  other  chapters  I  have  empha- 
sized sufficiently  the  importance  of  care  and  feeding  in  egg  pro- 
duction ;  in  this  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the  subject  of  breeding. 


57 

THE   THREE   LAWS   OR   PRINCIPLES   UNDERLYING 

REPRODUCTION. 

Breeders  now  recognize  three  laws  or  principles  under- 
lying the  whole  subject  of  reproduction,  i.  Inheritance.  By 
inheritance  is  meant  the  tendency  of  parents  to  repeat  themselves 
in  their  offspring,  and  of  offspring  to  resemble  their  parents.  It 
is  because  of  this  law  of  inheritance  that  anything  like  scientific 
breeding  is  possible.  If  parents  did  not  have  a  proclivity  to 
repeat  themselves  in  their  offspring  and  if  offspring  did  not  have 
a  proclivity  to  resemble  their  parents,  the  breeder  might  well 
abandon  his  task  as  hopeless.  2.  Variation.  By  variation  is 
meant  rhe  tendency  of  offspring  to  differ  from  the  parents.  The 
infant  is  never  an  exact  copy  of  the  father  or  mother ;  it  possesses 
an  independent  individuality  of  its  own.  Thus  the  product  of  a 
and  b  is  never  a  or  b,  or  even  ab  or  ba;  it  is  ab  plus  x:  in  other 
words  there  enters  in  an  unknown  element  to  influence  the  result. 
It  is  this  law  of  variation  that  makes  it  possible  to  improve  the 
species:  the  parents  may  be  so  mated  that  the  offspring  will  be 
better  and  stronger  than  either  one  of  them.  3.  Reversion. 
There  is  a  propensity  to  go  backwards  as  well  as  forw&rds — to 
return  to  some  primitive  type.  Where  mating  is  indiscriminate 
the  tendency  to  reversion  is  very  strong. 

BREED   FROM   YOUR   BEST   BIRDS. 

We  have  now  reached  the  point  where  it  is  possible  to  formu- 
late some  rules  for  breeding.  The  first  is  this :  Breed  from  your 
best  birds.  By  best  birds  I  mean  birds  that  will  best  enable  you 
to  reach  your  ideal.  If  your  ideal  is  beauty  breed  from  birds  that 
will  give  you  beauty ;  if  your  ideal  is  utility  breed  from  birds  that 
will  give  you  utility.  We  now  see  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  have 
a  show  bird  and  an  egg  bird  in  the  same  specimen.  The  breeder 
must  sacrifice  somewhere— either  on  the  score  card  or  the  egg 
record.  It  is  possible  to  have  a  good  looker  and  a  good  layer  in 
the  same  bird;  but  I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  have  a 
bird  that  will  win  in  Boston,  New  York  or  Chicago,  and  at  the 
same  time  lay  200  eggs  a  year.  The  reader  must  make  his  choice. 
I  have  made  mine.  Utility  first,  beauty  afterwards.  I  like  to  see 
a  beautiful  bird  as  well  as  any  one,  but  I  can't  afford  to  breed  for 
plumage  and  points.  My  White  Wyandottes  sometimes  show 
some  brass;  they  stand  higher  than  I  like;  but  they  will  lay— 


58 

summer  and  winter,  hot  or  cold,  wet  or  dry — lay  so  that  I  some- 
times fear  they  will  lay  themselves  to  death.  They  are  a  money- 
making  proposition  for  me  and  for  my  customers,  even  if  they 
cannot  win  at  the  big  shows. 

BREED   FROM   MATURE   BIRDS. 

The  only  bird  fit  to  breed  from  is  one  that  is  in  good  health 
and  thoroughly  mature.  Probably  the  best  mating  is  a  vigorous, 
well-grown  cockerel  with  year-old  hens ;  next  to  that  a  cock  with 
mature  pullets.  A  pullet  should  have  laid  out  at  least  one  litter 
before  she  is  put  into  a  breeding  pen.  Even  then  it  is  better  not 
to  use  her,  if  you  can  help  it.  There  is  no  surer  way  of  running 
out  a  flock  than  to  breed  from  immature  birds. 

THE  MALE. 

You  often  hear  it  said  that  "the  rooster  is  half  the  pen."  It  is 
meant  by  this  that  one-half  the  blood  of  the  offspring  will  come 
from  the  male  side.  Such  being  the  case  it  is  highly  important 
that  the  cock  or  cockerel  should  be  a  good  bird.  A  few  para- 
graphs back  I  spoke  of  the  fact  that  the  hen  in  her  wild  state  laid 
from  six  to  ten  eggs  a  year.  The  average  farmer's  hen  lays  from 
75  to  100  eggs  in  the  same  time.  What  has  made  the  increase? 
It  has  come,  as  I  have  said,  from  improved  nutrition  and  from 
selection.  But  the  selection  has  all  been  on  the  male  side !  It  is 
the  practice  on  the  farm,  and  I  doubt  not  has  been  for  generations, 
to  keep  the  best  male  to  breed  from,  but  to  breed  indiscriminately 
from  the  females.  The  fact  that  under  such  haphazard  methods 
of  keeping  fowls  as  have  prevailed  in  the  past,  egg  production  has 
increased  tenfold,  is  a  remarkable  tribute  to  the  value  of  the  male 
as  an  agent  in  building  up  the  egg  yield. 

CONCERNING  CROSSES. 

You  will  find  a  strong  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  average 
poultry  keeper  to  mix  up  his  birds.  If  he  gets  a  flock  of  fowls 
that  begin  to  look  alike,  ten  to  one  he  will  buy  a  rooster  of  a 
neighbor  for  a  dollar  of  some  entirely  different  breed,  and  the 
result  will  be  that  the  next  fall  he  will  have  a  whole  poultry  show 
on  his  hands.  There  is  a  popular  belief  that  crosses  lay  better 
than  thoroughbreds,  and  the  method  of  procedure  is  to  mix  up  the 
birds  as  much  as  possible. 


59 

This  whole  subject  of  crossing  needs  to  be  better  understood. 
Some  good  must  come  from  crossing,  or  it  would  not  be  so  uni- 
versally practiced.  Where  does  it  come  from?  It  comes  from 
the  invigoration  that  always  follows  the  introduction  of  new 
blood.  The  cross-breed  pullet  lays  better  than  its  mother  because 
it  is  larger  and  stronger — it  can  eat  and  assimilate  more  and  stand 
the  strain  of  egg  production  better.  The  average  farmer's  flock 
is  constantly  running  out.  He  does  not  breed  from  his  best.  The 
introduction  of  new  blood  counteracts  this  tendency.  Conse- 
quently the  farmer  is  converted  to  a  belief  in  the  superiority  of 
the  cross. 

But  when  you  go  beyond  the  first  cross — when  you  criss-cross, 
as  they  say — you  strike  another  tendency — the  tendency  to 
reversion.  The  mixing  up  of  bloods  results  in  bringing  out 
ancestral  characters.  The  criss-cross  is  not  far  removed  from 
the  red  jungle  fowl,  and  there  inevitably  comes  a  drop  in  egg 
production. 

All  the  valuable  results  that  come  from  crossing  can  be 
secured  by  the  occasional  infusion  of  new  blood  from  a  male  of 
the  same  breed  as  your  own,  and  the  breed  may  be  kept  pure.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  introduce  new  blood  oftener  than  once  in  two 
years.  Suppose  you  send  away  for  a  cockerel  this  fall.  The  first 
mating  will  be  with  birds  with  which  he  is  entirely  unrelated. 
Next  fall  mate  him  to  the  best  pullets  of  his  own  get,  and  take  the 
best  cockerel  to  mate  with  the  hens  in  the  other  breeding  pen.  If 
you  find  a  strain  of  birds  that  you  like  follow  along  with  the 
breeder,  getting  a  male  from  his  yards  every  two  years. 

Breeders  for  fancy  points  breed  in  and  in,  and  have  a  chart  of 
matings  that  is  as  intricate  as  a  bicycle  road  map.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  produce  show  birds  that  will  win  in  the  hottest  competition 
without  in  and  in  breeding.  But  the  reader  of  this  book  has  no 
necessity  to  resort  to  any  such  procedure — that  is,  if  he  is  after 
eggs  first  and  not  feathers  and  frills. 

FERTILE  EGGS  AND  HOW  TO  GET  THEM. 
To  get  fertile  eggs  three  things  are  necessary — maturity,  vital- 
ity, comfort.  The  conditions  in  the  breeding  pen  must  be  such  as 
to  promote  maximum  vitality.  Where  the  male  is  immature, 
where  the  house  is  so  cold  that  all  the  food  eaten  goes  to  main- 
tain the  caloric,  where  the  fowls  are  alive  with  vermin  or  rotten  with 


60 

disease,  the  fertility  will  be  low.  Inbreeding  also  tends  to  infer- 
tility. So  does  lack  of  exercise  and  overfat  condition  of  fowls  in 
the  breeding  pen. 

Doubtless  diet  has  an  important  effect  upon  fertility.  Unless 
every  element  needed  for  the  embryo  is  present,  the  egg  will  be 
infertile  or  the  chick  will  die  in  the  shell.  There  are  some  kinds 
of  food  that  stimulate  the  genital  organs  and  promote  sexual 
activity.  Raw  onions  chopped  fine  and  fed  in  the  mash  twice  a 
week  are  excellent  during  the  breeding  season.  Clover  is  also  a 
valuable  food  for  fertility. 

Where  fertile  eggs  are  wanted  the  hen  must  not  be  pushed  too 
hard  for  egg  production.  My  own  method  is  to  push  my  pullets 
the  first  year.  I  reserve  the  best  layers  to  breed  from,  and  do  not 
push  them  the  second  year ;  but  let  them  take  things  easy.  They 
have  made  their  record  and  deserve  a  rest.  When  the  breeding 
season  comes  they  are  in  prime  condition,  and  lay  large,  highly 
colored  eggs  which  hatch  hardy  chicks. 

It  pays  to  alternate  males  where  high  fertility  is  desired,  allow- 
ing three  males  for  two  pens,  keeping  two  in  active  service  and 
the  third  shut  up  to  rest.  Cocks  have  their  favorites,  and  where 
one  male  runs  with  a  flock  some  hens  are  neglected;  but  where 
males  are  alternated  all  are  likely  to  be  served. 

Many  eggs  fail  to  hatch  because  they  are  not  properly  cared 
for.  It  takes  but  little  to  kill  the  germ.  One  reason  farmers  get 
such  poor  results  in  winter  is  that  they  are  not  careful  to  gather 
their  eggs  several  times  a  day.  The  opinion  is  common  among 
them  that  an  egg  must  be  frozen  hard  enough  to  crack  the  shell 
before  it  is  unfit  to  put  under  a  hen.  Eggs  should  be  gathered 
when  warm  and  kept  in  a  temperature  of  from  40  to  60  degrees. 
In  shipping  eggs  to  customers  they  should  be  moved  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  and  protected  from  extremes  of  temperature  as 
much  as  possible. 

WHY  EGGS  ARE  NOT  FERTILE  IN  WINTER. 

Almost  every  winter  some  person  of  my  acquaintance  buys  an 
incubator  and  starts  in  to  raise  broilers  for  the  city  market.  The 
result  is  inevitably  disappointment.  The  percentage  of  fertility 
is  so  low  and  the  mortality  among  the  chicks  so  great,  that  the 
books  show  a  loss  instead  of  a  profit  at  the  end  of  the  season. 
The  reason  why  the  fertility  is  so  low  in  winter  is  purely  physio- 
logical. "The  testicles  of  birds  vary  greatly  in  size  according  to 


61 

the  season  of  the  year  in  which  they  are  observed.  In  winter 
they  are  very  small  with  a  comparatively  insignificant  blood  sup- 
ply ;  but  in  spring,  as  the  breeding  season  comes  on,  they  enlarge 
to  five  or  ten  times-  the  weight  during  winter,  the  vessels  are  dis- 
tended with  blood  and  the  height  of  functional  activity  is 
reached."  To  get  fertile  eggs  in  winter,  therefore,  the  house  must 
be  warm,  or  eggs  must  be  imported  from  the  South. 


CHAPTER   X. 


INCUBATION— ARTIFICIAL  AND  NATURAL. 


As  the  poultry  business  is  now  conducted  it  is  the  practice  for 
each  poultryman  to  get  out  enough  chicks  in  the  spring  to  supply 
him  with  layers  in  the  fall.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  why  the 
great  law  of  specialization  should  not  obtain  in  the  poultry  busi- 
ness as  in  nearly  every  other,  and  why  in  the  future  we  should  not 
have  entire  plants  devoted  to  the  rearing  of  young  stock  and 
other  plants  devoted  wholly  to  the  production  of  eggs.  At  pres- 
ent, however,  it  is  necessary  for  the  poultryman  to  know  how  to 
raise  his  own  chicks,  if  he  wishes  to  succeed. 

It  is  a  good  rule  on  a  poultry  farm  to  have  at  least  two-thirds 
of  the  laying  stock  pullets.  Suppose  then  a  man  intends  to  keep 
300  head  of  laying  stock  always  on  hand, — it  will  be  necessary  for 
him  to  get  out  at  least  600  chicks.  Of  these  one-half  (or  300) 
are  likely  to  be  males ;  so  that  at  the  start  he  will  have  but  30$ 
females.  The  poultryman  must  count  on  some  deaths  by  disease 
and  accident.  There  will  be  some  weak  ones  that  are  better  off 
put  out  of  the  way.  Then  he  should  watch  his  flock  carefully  and 
cull  closely,  according  to  the  principles  laid  down  in  Chapter 
VII.  The  man  who  gets  out  600  chicks  in  the  spring  will  be 
lucky  if  he  has  200  standard  bred  pullets  in  the  fall. 

USE   LEG   BANDS. 

Pullets  when  they  are  put  in  the  laying  pens  should  be  marked 
with  leg  bands.  It  is  not  necessary  to  use  bands  with  numbers ; 
plain  bands  are  just  as  good.  It  is  my  personal  practice  to  mark 
birds  hatched  in  the  even  years  (years  that  can  be  divided  by  two) 


62 

with  a  band  on  the  right  leg;  and  birds  that  are  hatched  in  the 
odd  years  (years  that  cannot  be  divided  by  two)  with  a  band  on 
the  left  leg.  In  this  way  I  can  always  tell  at  a  glance  just  how 
old  a  bird  is,  and  never  confuse  a  pullet  and  a  year-old  hen. 

INCUBATOR   OR   HEN,   WHICH? 

Sooner  or  later  the  poultryman  must  face  the  question  with 
which  this  paragraph  is  headed,  and  it  is  my  purpose  now  to  help 
him  to  an  answer.  In  this  matter,  as  in  most  others,  there  is 
something  to  be  said  on  both  sides.  In  favor  of  the  natural 
method  there  is  first  of  all  economy.  It  costs  at  least  $25  to  install 
an  outfit  fpr  artificial  incubation,  and  this  is  an  expense  that  many 
can  ill  afford.  Chickens  brooded  by  hens  have  more  stamina  and 
are  subject  to  fewer  diseases  than  chickens  brooded  in  any  other 
way.  There  is  no  mother  for  a  brood  of  young  chickens  that  can 
equal  an  old  hen.  Some  of  the  most  progressive  poultrymen  in 
the  country  use  heris  exclusively,  setting  hundreds  of  them  at  a 
time. 

The  disadvantage  of  the  natural  method  is  that  it  is  never  com- 
pletely under  one's  control.  Whatever  mental  qualities  a  hen 
may  or  may  not  possess,  she  has  a  full-grown,  large-sized  will; 
and  no  method  has  yet  been  discovered  to  make  a  hen  sit  when  she 
does  not  want  to.  To  realize  the  largest  profits  in  poultry, 
chickens  must  be  hatched  early  and  kept  growing  from  the  day 
they  leave  the  shell.  It  is  not  always  possible  to  have  a  supply  of 
sitting  hens  on  hand.  The  sitting  hen  is  liable  to  leave  her  nest 
before  her  task  is  done,  and  no  amount  of  persuasion  will  induce 
her  to  return.  Sometimes  she  crushes  eggs  or  young  chicks  under 
her  clumsy  feet.  At  the  best  she  can  bring  out  but  a  few 
chickens  at  a  time.  After  a  while  the  up-to-date  poultryman  is 
almost  certain  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  must  have  an 
incubator. 

The  advantage  of  the  artificial  method  is  that  it  is  so  com- 
pletely under  one's  control.  The  incubator  may  be  started  at  any 
time.  The  best  machines  are  so  adjusted  that  the  element  of 
chance  is  practically  eliminated,  and  every  fertile  egg  may  be 
incubated.  The  trouble  comes  in  rearing  the  chickens.  Brooder 
chickens  require  much  more  attention  and  are  more  subject  to  dis- 
ease than  chickens  brooded  under  hens.  The  per  cent,  of  loss 
is  greater.  Especially  among  beginners  there  is  sometimes  a 
"slaughter  of  the  innocents"  that  is  frightful. 


63 

To  sum  up :  If  one  wants  early  chickens  and  wants  them  in 
quantities  and  has  the  time  to  give  to  them,  he  should  by  all  means 
get  an  incubator.  Otherwise  he  would  best  stick  to  the  hen. 

GET  A  ^  GOOD  INCUBATOR  OR  NONE. 
In  purchasing  an  incubator  remember  that  the  best  is  the 
cheapest.  A  poor  machine  is  dear  at  any  price.  Beware  of  the 
home-made  incubator.  Sometimes  they  work  satisfactorily,  but 
oftener  they  do  not.  I  know  a  young  man  of  more  than  ordinary 
ingenuity  who  constructed  an  incubator  from  plans  that  he  found 
in  a  paper.  By  visiting  the  machine  at  intervals  during  the  day 
and  by  getting  up  two  or  three  times  a  night  to  trim  the  lamp  or 
to  pull  out  plugs  so  that  the  surplus  heat  might  escape,  he  was 
able  to  keep  the  temperature  somewhere  near  where  it  ought  to  be. 
But  one  warm  Sunday,  while  he  was  at  church,  the  tempera- 
ture took  a  leap  upward,  and  when  he  returned  at  noon  the  ther- 
mometer registered  120  degrees.  As  a  consequence  180  chickens 
were  prematurely  roasted,  and  nearly  three  weeks  of  valuable  time 
lost.  The  young  man  has  lost  confidence  in  incubators,  and  now 
hatches  his  chickens  with  hens.  An  incubator  should  be  bought 
at  least  a  month  before  it  is  to  be  started  on  eggs,  in  order  that 
the  operator  may  become  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  machine 
and  know  how  to  run  it  right. 

A  NATURAL  HEN  INCUBATOR. 

The  work  of  caring  for  sitting  hens  may  be  greatly  reduced 
by  the  construction  of  what  I  may  call  a  natural  hen  incubator, 
the  design  for  which  is  shown  here. 


A  Natural  Hen  Incubator. 

This  natural  hen  incubator  may  be  of  any  length ;  but  should 
be  two  feet  deep,  two  feet  high,  and  divided  into  compartments 
18  inches  wide.  Some  prefer  a  door  to  each  compartment,  but  I 


64 

find  it  more  convenient  to  have  the  doors  somewhat  longer,  so 
that  one  may  enclose  a  number  of  divisions.  The  top  should  be 
hinged  at  the  back,  so  that  it  can  be  lifted  up  if  desired,  as  shown 
in  the  cut;  but  ordinarily  it  is  shut  down.  The  door  in  front  is 
covered  with  chicken  wire.  Each  compartment  should  be  in  two 
divisions,  so  if  a  hen  wishes  to  leave  her  nest  temporarily  she 
can  do  so. 

If  possible,  enough  hens  should  be  set  at  one  time  to  utilize 
all  the  compartments  behind  a  door.  The  door  should  be  kept 
latched  except  in  the  morning  when  it  is  opened,  the  hens  taken 
off,  fed  and  watered  and  left  to  dust.  In  from  10  to  20  minutes, 
according  to  the  weather,  the  hens  should  be  driven  back.  As 
the  hens  are  all  set  at  the  same  time  it  makes  no  difference  which 
compartment  a  hen  enters.  She  will  find  eggs  ready  for  her. 

THE  SITTING  HEN. 

Where  incubation  is  carried  on  by  the  natural  method  it  is 
important  to  have  a  supply  of  sitting  hens  on  hand  in  March, 
April  and  May,  in  order  that  the  chicks  may  be  hatched  early. 
While  it  is  true  that  no  method  has  yet  been  discovered  to  make 
a  hen  sit  at  will,  it  is  also  true  that  the  instinct  may  be  encour- 
aged. As  soon  as  we  understand  the  philosophy  of  incubation 
we  may  go  to  work  to  bring  about  the  desired  result.  In  a  state 
of  Nature  when  does  the  hen  sit?  In  summer.  Why  in  sum- 
mer? Because  the  reproductive  instinct  has  been  stimulated  by 
the  hot  weather.  Because  she  has  laid  her  litter  out.  Because 
she  has  become  fat  and  sluggish.  It  is  evident  that  if  we  can 
reproduce  these  conditions  we  can  hasten  incubation. 

Old  hens  make  the  best  sitters,  because  they  are  not  so  active 
as  young  ones.  The  treatment  of  hens  that  are  kept  for  sitters 
should  be  radically  different  from  the  treatment  of  hens  that  are 
kept  for  layers.  They  should  be  confined  more  closely  and  fed 
differently.  Corn  should  form  an  important  part  of  their  food. 
As  soon  as  a  hen  shows  symptoms  of  broodiness  she  should  be 
encouraged.  She  should  be  taken  at  night  and  placed  in  a  nest 
prepared  for  her  in  a  dark,  quiet  place.  This  nest  should  con- 
tain china  eggs,  and  should  be  covered  with  a  burlap  bag  to  make 
it  dark.  The  next  morning  the  bag  should  be  removed  and  the 
hen  let  out  for  food  and  water.  If  she  goes  back  it  is  safe  to 
entrust  her  with  real  eggs.  % 


65 

The  comfort  of  a  sitting  hen 'should  be  scrupulously  looked 
after.  Before  she  is  placed  on  the  nest  she  should  be  thoroughly 
dusted  with  some  good  insect  powder  and  again  just  before  she 
brings  off  her  brood.  She  should  be  taken  off  the  nest,  fed  and 
watered  and  given  a  chance  to  dust  herself  every  day.  Sitting 
hens  should  be  fed  on  whole  corn,  as  that  is  slowly  digested  and 
is  a  heat-forming  food. 

TESTING   THE   EGGS. 

While  it  is  essential  that  the  sitters  be  kept  as  quiet  as  possible, 
yet  it  is  important  that  the  eggs  be  tested  once  or  twice  during 
the  period  of  incubation.  Egg  testers  can  be  purchased  at  a  low 
price  from  the  manufacturers  of  incubators  or  at  poultry  supply 
stores.  Eggs  must  be  tested  in  a  dark  room  or  at  night.  The 
first  test  should  be  made  at  the  expiration  of  seven  days.  If  thp 
egg,  when  looked  at  in  the  tester,  is  clear,  it  is  infertile  and  should 
be  removed  from  the  nest.  If  the  egg  when  looked  at  is  cloudy 
or  dark,  with  a  well  defined  air  space  at  the  big  end,  incubation 
has  begun.  The  water  test,  described  in  the  next  section,  should 
be  made  on  the  iQth  day,  and  eggs  with  dead  germs  in  them  taken 
out. 

THE  WATER  TEST. 

Where  a  sitting  hen  does  not  have  a  chance  to  get  out  doors, 
her  owner  should  supply  moisture  to  make  good  the  loss  to  the 
eggs  by  evaporation.  Eggs  should  be  sprinkled  on  the  7th  and 
on  the  "i4th  day.  Remove  the  hen  from  the  nest  and  with  a  whisk 
broom  sprinkle  the  eggs  thoroughly  with  water  of  a  temperature 
of  95  degrees.  On  the  iQth  day  the  eggs  should  be  given  a  bath. 
Fill  a  pail  with  water  of  the  temperature  of  95  degrees,  and  after 
it  has  become  still  drop  the  eggs  in  it  one  by  one,  letting  them 
remain  frotn  one  to  three  minutes.  If  there  is  a  lively  chick  in 
the  egg  in  a  minute  or  two  it  will  begin  to  bob  up  and  down  as 
a  float  does  on  the  water  when  a  fish  is  nibbling  at  the  bait  below. 
Take  the  egg  out  and  put  it  back  in  the  nest,  wiping  it  with  a 
towel  if  it  is  winter  but  letting  the  surplus  water  remain  if  it  is 
summer.  In  case  an  egg  does  not  show  any  movement  after 
being  in  the  water  three  minutes— if  it  does  not  "jump"— you 
might  as  well  throw  it  away,  as  it  will  not  incubate.  Chicks  from 
eggs  treated  in  this  way  come  out  strong  and  clean'  and  make  a 
surprising  growth. 


CHAPTER   XL 


CHICKS  AND  THEIR  CARE. 


Poultry  keeping  is  not  with  me  a  means  of  livelihood,  but  is 
more  in  the  nature  of  a  recreation.  It  is  a  matter  of  personal 
pride  with  me,  however,  to  make  poultry  keeping  pay.  I  do  not 
at  present  get  out  my  own  chicks,  but  supply  eggs  to  those  who 
have  a  knack  for  the  business  and  let  them  hatch  chicks  for  me 
and  keep  them  until  they  are  weaned.  Then  I  select  what  I  want 
in  accordance  with  the  principles  laid  down  in  Chapter  VII. 
People  often  wonder  how  I  get  such  a  growth  on  my  chicks  after 
I  take  them  into  my  hands.  The  reason  is  very  simple.  I  select 
only  as  many  chicks  as  I  have  room  for  and  I  keep  chicks  of  the 
same  age  together.  The  average  poultry  keeper  gets  out  alto- 
gether too  many  chicks.  There  is  a  temptation  when  eggs  are 
hatching  well  to  set  every  hen  that  is  broody  or  to  fill  up  the  incu- 
bator just  once  more.  There  is  plenty  of  room  for  the  chicks  at 
first,  but  as  they  grow  older  they  are  crowded  and  do  not  do  so 
well  as  they  ought.  Then  when  chicks  of  different  ages  are  left 
together,  there  is  too  much  "rough  house"  for  the  younger  ones 
and  they  become  stunted.  If  you  want  fine  birds  get  out  only  as 
many  chicks  as  you  have  room  for,  divide  them  into  small  flocks, 
and  keep  chicks  of  the  same  age  by  themselves. 

WHY   NOT   INSTALL   A    BROODER? 

Even  where  an  incubator  is  not  employed  a  brooder  may  be 
Installed  to  good  advantage.  I  know  a  man  who  gets  out  in  the 
neighborhood  of  1,000  chicks  every  spring — hatching  them  all 
under  hens  and  brooding  them  in  brooders.  I  am  as  great  an 
admirer  of  the  American  hen  as  any  other  man,  but  I  confess  that 
her  conduct  as  a  mother  is  often  not  such  as  to  impress  me  with 
an  exalted  opinion  of  her  mentality. 

The  best  brooder,  in  my  opinion,  is  one  built  for 
TOO  chicks,  and  costing  about  $12,  just  as  the  best  incubator  is 
one  built  for  200  eggs  or  thereabouts.  The  out-door  brooder  is 
not  generally  satisfactory,  as  it  is  difficult  to  keep  chicks  warm 
enough  in  it  when  the  temperature  ranges  low.  The  brooder 


UNIVERSITY 


should  be  placed  in  a  brooder  house,  and  there  is  no  better 
brooder  house  in  my  opinion  than  the  colony  community  house 
described  in  Chapter  II. 

Be  sure  to  set  the  brooder  where  the  sun  will  not  shine  on  it, 
in  installing  it  in  a  house ;  and  do  not  put  more  than  60  chicks  in 
a  loo-chick  brooder. 

REMOVING  CHICKS  TO   BROODER. 

We  will  now  assume  that  the  period  of  incubation  is  com- 
pleted, and  that  the  chicks  are  ready  to  be  removed  from  the  nest. 
It  is  24  hours  at  least  since  the  last  chick  broke  the  shell,  and  may 
be  48  hours  since  the  first  hardy  pioneer  made  his  entrance  into 
our  sinful  world.  I  assume  that  two  or  three  times  while  the 
chicks  were  hatching  you  gently  lifted  up  the  mother  hen  and 
removed  the  fragments  of  broken  egg  shell  from  the  nest. 

And  now  comes  the  most  important  and  in  some  ways  the 
most  disagreeable  part  of  the  whole  business — the  transfer  of 
the  chicks  from  the  nest  to  the  brooder,  which  may  be  some  dis- 
tance away.  You  cannot  choose  your  day — it  may  be  cold  or  it 
may  be  warm — but  you  can  choose  the  warmest  part  of  it  for 
your  purpose.  Better  take  your  wife  with  you,  if  you  are  fortu- 
nate enough  to  have  one.  Take  a  shallow  basket,  such  as  is  used 
for  marketing,  and  line  the  bottom  with  a  piece  of  old  woolen 
blanket,  which  has  previously  been  warmed.  Over  this  lay 
another  piece  of  warmed  blanket,  to  put  over  the  chickens  when 
they  are  pkced  in  the  basket. 

As  each  chicken  is  taken  out  from  under  the  hen  anoint  its 
head  lightly  with  lard  or  vaseline,  to  kill  head  lice,  and  place  it 
quickly  in  the  basket.  When  the  basket  is  full  take  the  chicks  to 
the  brooder  house  and  place  them  in  the  hover,  which  has  been 
brought  to  a  temperature  of  100  degrees. 

If  you  are  a  man  of  tender  sensibilities  you  will  feel  as  if  you 
were  a  kidnapper  or  a  manstealer  when  you  take  the  chicks  away 
from  their  mother.  You  will  feel,  as  one  man  expressed  it  to  me, 
"too  mean  to  look  a  hen  in  the  face."  But,  fortunately,  the  hen 
does  not  suffer  long — she  soon  forgets.  Place  her  in  a  bright, 
sunny  pen  where  there  are  other  hens  and  a  male,  supply  her  with 
more  varied  food  than  she  has  been  accustomed  to  during  the 
period  of  incubation,  and  in  a  few  days  she  will  be  scratching  and 
singing  as  merrily  as  of  yore. 


68 

TWO  SECRETS  OF  SUCCESS— HEAT  AND  FEEDING. 
The  two  great  secrets  of  success  in  raising  brooder  chicks  are 
proper  heat  and  proper  feeding.  The  heat  should  come  from 
overhead,  as  this  is  the  most  natural  method,  and  should  be  hot 
air.  Bear  in  mind  that  the  young  chick  needs  a  great  deal  of 
heat.  He  has  come  from  a  warm  place — the  temperature  of  his 
mother's  body  being  103  degrees.  For  the  first  two  or  three  days 
the  temperature  in  the  brooder  should  be  95  degrees ;  then  it  may 
be  gradually  lowered,  as  the  chicks  grow,  until  it  drops  to  80 
degrees  if  the  weather  is  warm  and  pleasant.  "The  best  rule  to 
follow  is  to  observe  the  chicks.  .  .  .  If  they  arrange  them- 
selves at  the  edge  of  the  brooder,  and  separate,  by  spreading  out, 
the  heat  will  be  just  what  they  desire.  If  too  cool  they  will  come 
closely  together  and  cro\vd.  Many  operators  have  left  their 
chicks  apparently  contented  at  night,  only  to  find  in  the  morning 
some  of  them  dead  under  the  brooder,  because  the  heat  lowered 
and  the  chicks  trampled  among  themselves  in  the  effort  to  secure 
more  warmth,  and  this,  too,  when  (to  the  operator)  there  seemed 
to  be  sufficient." 

CARE    OF   THE    BROODER. 

The  brooder  is  to  be  the  home  of  the  chicks  until  they  are  at 
least  six  weeks  old.  It  is  a  good  idea  to  keep  the  brooder  in  the 
brooder  house  until  August,  and  then  on  the  cold,  wet  days  which 
we  sometimes  have  in  summer  give  the  chicks  a  little  heat.  The 
floor  of  the  brooder  should  be  kept  sprinkled  with  sand,  and 
should  be  cleaned  every  morning.  The  floor  of  the  brooder  house 
should  also  be  kept  covered  with  clean  sand,  and  the  windows 
should  be  opened  every  warm  and  sunny  day.  There  is  no  hurry 
to  get  the  chicks  out  on  the  ground ;  indeed  it  is  better  for  them 
to  spend  the  first  four  weeks  of  their  lives  indoors. 

The  brooder  should  be  enclosed  with  a  low  fence  of  boards 
for  the  first  few  days,  so  that  the  chicks  cannot  get  far  away. 
They  should  be  given  their  first  feeds  in  the  brooder  and  watered 
there,  but  in  a  little  while  the  feed  tray  and  fountain  may  be 
placed  outside  the  brooder,  but  close  to  it.  Grit  of  some  kind 
should  be  supplied. 

HOW   TO   FEED   BROODER   CHICKS. 
My  method  of  feeding  brooder  chicks  is  as  follows :  The  first 
week  or  ten  days  I  feed  rolled  oats  and  nothing  else, — just  the 


69 

same  kind  of  rolled  oats  that  I  use  on  my  own  table.  I  feed  them 
dry.  I  feed  them  in  little  troughs  made  for  the  purpose,  and  keep 
oats  before  the  chicks  all  the  time.  Every  day  or  two  I  take  the 
troughs  and  empty  the  oats  remaining  in  them  into  the  hens'  dish, 
and  brush  out  the  troughs  with  a  whisk  broom.  It  may  seem 
extravagant,  to  feed  rolled  oats  at  five  cents  a  pound ;  but  I  believe 
the  foundation  of  a  chick's  constitution  and  future  growth  is  laid 
in  the  first  few  weeks  of  its  life,  and  it  is  cheaper  in  the  end  to 
feed  as  I  do  and  have  the  chicks  live  and  thrive  than  to  feed  some- 
thing else  and  have  them  stunted  and  die. 

At  the  end  of  a  week  or  ten  days  I  begin  to  introduce  a  little 
variety.  I  take  wheat  and  cracked  corn — one  part  wheat  to  two 
parts  corn — and  feed  a  small  quantity  of  this  in  place  of  the  rolled 
oats.  I  increase  the  quantity  of  wheat  and  corn  from  day  to  day 
and  decrease  the  quantity  of  rolled  oats,  so  that  when  the 
chicks  are  a  month  old  I  have  weaned  them  from  the  rolled  oats 
and  am  feeding  them  on  whole  wheat  and  cracked  corn.  When 
the  chicks  are  ten  days  old  I  begin  to  give  them  green  food, — a 
little  at  first,  but  increasing  in  amount  from  day  to  day.  I  feed 
onion  tops,  cabbage  chopped  fine,  clover  tips,  or  if  I  can  get  noth- 
ing better  a  potato  baked  and  cut  in  two.  I  give  meat  in  small 
quantities  two  or  three  times  a  week.  Into  a  kettle  of  boiling 
water  I  put  a  piece  of  cheap  meat  or  a  soup  bone  with  considera- 
ble meat  adhering,  and  keep  it  there  until  well  cooked.  Then  I 
pour  off  the  liquid  and  take  the  meat  and  chop  it  into  fine  bits, 
or  grind  up  the  bone  in  my  bone  cutter,  and  throw  a  little  to  the 
chicks.  They  eat  it  greedily.  I  put  a  little  salt  in  the  water  so 
that  it  will  get  into  the  fibres  of  the  meat,  because  I  think  chicks 
need  a  certain  amount  of  salt. 

I  feed  in  this  way  until  the  chicks  are  "feathered  out,"  when 
I  begin  to  feed  them  much  as  I  do  my  hens, — a  warm  mash,  and 
two  or  three  feeds  of  grain  a  day.  Until  my  chicks  are  "feath- 
ered out"  I  keep  food  before  them  all  the  time,  letting  them  help 
themselves  when  they  will.  I  ought  to  add  that  I  am  careful  to 
keep  cool  fresh  water  before  them  from  the  very  first,  a'nd  also 
charcoal  and  grit. 

BROODER  CHICKS— WHAT  ANOTHER  MAN  THINKS. 

Writes  C.  A.  Stone  in  the  Poultry  Standard:  "I  generally 

leave  the  chicks  in  the  incubator  about  24  hours  after  they  are 

practically  through  hatching,  and  meanwhile  heat  a  brooder  to  95 


70 

degrees  for  about  every  50  or  60  chicks.  At  first  I  strew  the 
front  of  the  brooder  with  fine  grit,  and  then  give  them  bread 
crumbs  or  wheat  screenings  or  Cyphers  Chick  Food  for  their  first 
feed — just  what  they  will  eat  eat  up  clean — and  give  them  all  the 
water  they  want.  I  generally  feed  about  five  times  a  day  the  first 
two  or  three  days,  and  gradually  drop  off  to  three  feeds  at  three 
weeks.  However,  after  the  first  two  or  three  days  I  scatter  their 
feed  in  a  little  litter,  and  make  them  hustle  for  it.  Nothing  under 
the  sun  will  kill  young  chicks  quicker  than  stuffing  them  and  let- 
ting them  stand  around.  I  also  give  them  green  food  of  some 
sort  and  every  two  or  three  days  a  mash  containing  8  per  cent,  or 
10  per  cent,  of  meat  meal.  But  above  all  things  keep  them  hust- 
ling. 

''After  the  first  two  days  I  drop  the  temperature  to  90  degrees. 
I  aim  to  get  the  heat  down  to  80  degrees  in  the  first  week  and  a 
half  and  to  70  degrees  in  eight  or  ten  days  more.  As  near  as  I  can 
I  mean  to  drop  the  temperature  about  one  degree  a  day  until  70 
is  reached. 

"For  myself  I  use  outdoor  brooders  mostly,  and  while  we  can- 
not maintain  a  uniform  heat,  by  close  watching  we  can  keep  a  com- 
paratively even  temperature,  as  my  experience  is  that  after  a  chick 
has  been  chilled  or  over  heated  it  is  poor  property.  I  believe  in 
getting  them  on  the  ground  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  chicks 
learn  to  run  in  and  out  of  the  warm  part  of  the  brooder,  and  very 
frequently  am  obliged  to  shovel  snow  out  of  the  brooder  runs. 
But  a  chick  will  stand  a  lot  of  cold  if  he  keeps  on  the  move.  Of 
course  they  must  be  watched  closely  in  cold  weather  and  if  they 
show  signs  of  huddling  shut,  in  until  thoroughly  warmed. 

"Some  of  my  best  flocks  have  been  raised  on  wheat  screenings 
alone,  but  I  have  had  good  success  with  some  of  the  prepared 
chick  foods.  We  must  be  governed  by  the  season  of  year  in 
moving  to  the  cool  brooder,  as  early  chicks  must  be  supplied  with 
heat  a  long  time;  but  along  the  latter  part  of  April  I  get  them 
hardened  to  go  without  heat  in  about  three  weeks.  At  this  age 
they  are  practically  past  the  danger  point,  and  if  kept  free  from 
lice  and  given  proper  care  will  live  and  thrive/' 

WHEN  CHICKS  ARE  RAISED  IN  THE  GOOD  OLD  WAY. 

There  are  many  who  prefer  the  "good  old  way"  of  brooding 
by  hens,  and  to  them  I  recommend  the  following  from  the  pen 
of  my  good  friend,  Mr.  A.  F.  Hunter:  "For  the  first  24  hours 


71 

after  hatching  chicks  do  not  need  food,  as  the  portion  of  yolk  that 
has  just  been  taken  into  the  abdomen  has  not  been  fully  digested; 
and  then  too  the  chick  should  get  accustomed  to  the  fact  that  he 
has  'just  been  borned'  before  his  little  crop  is  started  on  its  sel- 
dom empty  journey  through  life.  When  the  hatch  conies  off  let 
the  little  fellows  have  a  drink  of  pure  fresh  water  (not  too  cold)  ; 
this  invigorates  them  and  helps  clear  the  digestive  organs  of  the 
waste  from  digested  yolk. 

"The  first  food  should  be  bread  crumbs  and  hard  boiled  egg, 
or  johnnycake.  To  each  pint  of  food  add  a  sprinkling  of  chicken 
grit.  The  food  for  the  first  few  weeks  should  be  johnnycake, 
rolled  oats,  coarse  oatmeal,  and  bread  or  cracker  crumbs.  A 
little  well  cooked  meat  finely  minced  three  times  a  week,  and  a 
liberal  supply  of  fresh  green  food,  grit,  charcoal,  and  pure  water, 
are  essential  to  health.  When  the  chicks  get  to  be  six  weeks  old 
they  should  have  a  cooked  mash  for  supper  six  nights  in  the 
week.  For  other  food  they  should  have  hulled  oats,  wheat  and  a 
little  cracked  corn — fresh  green  food  always. 

"From  the  first  have  a  litter  of  chaff  or  cut  clover  and  sand  for 
the  chicks  to  scratch  in;  exercise  is  essential  to  good  digestion. 
Give  them  sunny  quarters,  and  provide  a  shelter  in  case  the  sun  is 
too  hot,  and  for  protection  in  stormy  weather.  When  warm 
weather  comes  be  sure  that  they  can  have  plenty  of  freedom  and 
exercise  on  the  green  bosom  of  'Old  Mother  Earth.'  Keep  them 
busy,  happy  and  hungry.  Be  careful  not  to  overfeed.  If  you 
must  coop  them  up,  make  the  coops  large  enough  to  give  them 
plenty  of  room  to  exercise  and  grow.  Change  the  location  of 
snch  coops  often,  to  give  them  fresh  ground  to  run  on." 

WHEN  TO  HATCH  THE  CHICKS. 
Chicks  of  the  Asiatic  breeds  should  be  hatched  in  March, 
chicks  of  the  American  breeds  in  April,  and  chicks  of  the  Medi- 
terranean breeds  in  May,  for  winter  egg  production.  Poultry- 
men  who  want  eggs  all  the  year  round  will  do  well  to  keep  get- 
ting out  chicks  from  March  to  June  and  then  start  in  again  in 
September.  Josh  Billings  quaintly  says  that  "the  best  time  tew 
set  a  hen  iz  when  she  wants  tew  set ;"  and  the  man  who  has  the 
facilities  for  taking  care  of  them  will  find  that  chicks  hatched  at 
almost  any  season  of  the  year  will  not  come  in  amiss.  I  have 
known  White  Wyandotte  pullets  of  my  strain,  hatched  in  August, 
to  begin  laying  in  January,  when  in  the  same  pen  were  pullets  of 
other  breeds  hatched  months  before  that  had  not  begun  to  lay. 


CHAPTER   XII. 
SOME  OF  THE  MORE  COMMON  POULTRY  DISEASES. 


There  are  comparatively  few  diseases  that  need  give  the  poul- 
try keeper  much  alarm.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  our  domestic 
fowls  are  subject  to  as  many  diseases  as  human  beings.  But  if 
this  is  so  (which  I  greatly  doubt)  many  of  these  diseases  are  so 
rare  that  they  need  not  be  taken  into  consideration.  In  this 
chapter  I  shall  mention  only  the  more  common  ailments — and 
give  some  rules  for  their  treatment. 

HOW  TO  DISCOVER  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  SICKNESS. 

There  are  four  ways  by  which  the  poultryman  may  discover 
the  beginnings  of  sickness,  i.  General  appearance.  A  fowl  in 
health  is  alert  and  active,  plumage  smooth,  comb  red,  eye  bright 
and  clear,  appetite  good.  A  sick  fowl  is  generally  dumpish, 
plumage  rough,  comb  pale  or  purple,  appetite  poor.  2.  Respira- 
tion. Certain  kinds  of  disease  affect  the  respiratory  organs  and 
manifest  themselves  in  the  breathing.  The  best  time  to  detect 
diseases  of  this  sort  is  after  the  birds  have  gone  to  roost.  If  the 
birds  on  the  roost  sneeze  from  time  to  time,  if  the  breathing  is 
labored,  if  there  is  a  rattling,  bubbling  or  snoring  sound,  some- 
thing is  wrong  and  needs  attention.  3.  Excrement.  The 
excrement  is  a  pretty  good  index  of  the  health  of  a  hen.  Where 
the  bird  is  in  perfect  health  the  excrement  is  dark  green  in  color, 
tipped  with  white,  somewhat  moist.  Where  the  excrement  is  soft 
and  watery  the  digestion  is  disturbed.  Where  it  is  light  green  in 
color  there  is  danger  of  serious  trouble.  If  upon  examination  the 
excrement  shows  that  considerable  food  is  passing  through  undi- 
gested, the  bird  needs  to  be  supplied  with  grit.  4.  Odor.  Some 
kinds  of  disease — especially  roup — are  accompanied  by  an  offen- 
sive odor,  and  can  at  once  be  detected  by  the  smell. 

SEGREGATE   SICK  BIRDS. 

I  would  advise  all  poultrymen  to  fit  up  a  small  building  for  a 
hospital,  to  which  all  sick  fowls  may  at  once  be  removed.  In  the 
case  of  a  contagious  disease  this  is  especially  important,  for  the 


73 

sick  bird  if  allowed  to  remain  with  the  rest  may  communicate  the 
disease  to  the  whole  flock.  Even  where  the  disease  is  not  serious, 
the  patient  is  much  better  off  if  by  herself.  The  hospital  should 
be  kept  scrupulously  clean,  and  should  be  thoroughly  disinfected 
after  a  bird  has  been  confined  in  it  affected  with  any  serious 
trouble. 

DISEASES    OF   CHICKS. 

LICE. — In  fhe  chapter  on  "Chicks  and  Their  Care,"  I  have 
warned  the  breeder  to  be  on  the  lookout  for  lice.  I  repeat  the 
warning  here.  More  chicks  are  sacrificed  in  this  way  than  in 
any  other.  Even  if  the  chick  is  not  literally  eaten  alive  its  vital- 
ity is  often  so  much  reduced  that  it  readily  falls  a  prey  to  disease. 
It  is  never  safe  to  give  up  the  warfare  against  lice. 

CRAMPS  AND  RHEUMATISM. — Many  persons  who  get  out  early 
chicks  have  no  proper  facilities  for  handling  them.  Perhaps 
there  is  snow  on  the  ground  and  the  chicks  cannot  get  out  of 
doors,  so  they  are  left  on  a  board  floor  or  in  a  crowded  brooder, 
and  in  a  few  days  their  legs  begin  to  draw  up,  the  joints  become 
red  and  swollen,  and  the  little  things  die.  When  cramps  and 
rheumatism  get  among  the  chicks  transfer  at  once  to  dry  and 
roomy  quarters  where  their  feet  can  get  on  the  earth,  give 
green  food  in  variety,  and  rub  their  legs  with  witch  hazel. 
Sprinkle  chaff  about  so  that  the  chicks  will  have  to  scratch  for 
their  food.  Reduce  the  number  of  chicks  in  the  brooder,  if 
crowded.  Give  as  much  baking  soda  as  you  can  get  on  the  tip  of 
the  handle  of  a  teaspoon,  in  a  quart  of  water. 

LEG  WEAKNESS. — Where  young  fowls  are  forced  forward  for 
broilers  or  soft  roasters  they  are  apt  to  develop  leg  weakness,  the 
nature  of  which  is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  name.  The  bird 
walks  unsteadily,  lurching  from  side  to  side,  and  sometimes  sits 
when  eating  its  food.  "In  all  cases  give  cooling  food,  such  as 
bran,  barley,  rice,  green  food,  skim  milk  or  buttermilk  and  vege- 
tables. Avoid  condiments,  meat  and  stimulating  rations  of  all 
kinds." 

GAPES. — "Gapes  are  caused  by  small  worms  which  attach 
themselves  to  the  membranes  of  the  windpipe 'of  the  chick.  A 
piece  of  camphor  about  the  size  of  a  grain  of  wheat,  daily,  and  10 
drops  of  camphor  or  turpentine  to  each  pint  of  drinking  water,  is 
a  favorite  and  effective  remedy."  The  tip  of  a  feather  dipped  in 
turpentine  and  run  down  the  chick's  throat  will  dislodge  the  par- 
asite. 


74 

DIARRHOEA  OR  ENTERITIS. 

Feathering  out  is  a  very  trying  period  in  the  life  of  a  chick, 
corresponding  to  teething  in  the  life  of  a  child.  There  is  a  double 
tax  upon  the  chick's  system:  the  ordinary  demands  of  growth 
must  be  met,  and  the  little  body  must  be  covered  with  feathers. 
It  is  a  time  when  even  the  most  careful  poultryman  must  expect 
some  fatalities,  and  the  careless  or  lazy  poultryman  must  not  be 
surprised  to  see  his  flock  melt  away  like  snow  before  the  sun  in 
springtime.  When  the  poultryman  goes  to  feed  his  chicks  he 
notices  one  or  two,  perhaps  more,  standing  around  in  a  listless, 
dejected  way,  wings  drooping  or  outspread,  with  possibly  a  white 
threadlike  substance  which  has  just  exuded  from  the  bowels 
clinging  to  the  fluff  around  the  vent.  The  chick  may  throw  up 
its  head  and  gape.  In  a  few  hours  it  will  be  dead.  Its  digestive 
system  is  deranged,  and  it  is  suffering  from  what  is  known  as 
Diarrhoea  or  Enteritis. 

It  is  better,  far  better,  to  avoid  this  disease  than  to  attempt  to 
cure  it.  The  poultryman  should  realize  what  a  critical  period 
feathering  out  is,  and  strive  to  meet  it.  Especially  should  he  be 
careful  about  what  he  feeds  his  chicks,  making  no  sudden  changes 
in  their  bill  of  fare.  Nor  should  he  let  them  become  chilled  or  get 
drenched  in  a  shower.  If,  in  spite  of  all  precautions,  chicken 
cholera  makes  its  appearance,  the  house  and  brooders  should  be 
thoroughly  cleaned,  all  drinking  vessels  scalded,  and  air-slacked 
lime  sprinkled  lightly  about.  Some  good  remedies  are  as  fol- 
lows :  "Boiled  rice  upon  which  has  been  sprinkled  a  little  cinna- 
mon, lime  water  to  drink,  boiled  milk  and  dry  bran."  In  mild 
cases  add  one  or  two  drams  of  sulphate  of  iron  to  a  pint  of  drink- 
ing water.  In  very  serious  cases  where  the  diarrhoea  is  accompa- 
nied by  pain,  fever  or  bloody  discharges,  give  1-8  grain  pow- 
dered opium  and  two  grains  subnitrate  of  bismuth  every  four 
hours. 

COLDS    AND    BRONCHITIS. 

Fowls  are  very  susceptible  to  colds.  The  reason  is,  I  sup- 
pose, that  they  are  subjected  to  great  changes  of  temperature. 
Poultry  houses  are  so  built  that  the  sun  shines  full  upon  them, 
and  at  midday  even  in  winter  the  interior  is  often  very  warm.  It 
is  generally  when  the  temperature  is  highest  that  the  fowls  are 
working  the  hardest.  The  conditions  are  analogous  to  what  they 
would  be  were  a  man  obliged  to  wear  a  heavy  fur  coat  all  the  time 


75 

night  and  day  and  exercise  in  a  room  where  the  mercury  was 
at  70  degrees,  and  then  sleep  in  a  room  where  it  fell  below  zero. 
Such  extremes  would  affect  the  hardiest  constitution.  Colds 
would  not  be  nearly  so  common  if  poultry  keepers  would  open  the 
windows  in  their  houses  every  day  in  winter  when  the  sun  shines, 
and  keep  them  open  from  1 1  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  four  in 
the  afternoon. 

The  symptoms  of  a  cold  are  sneezing,  bubbling  at  the  nose, 
watery  eye  and  perhaps  diarrhoea.  Colds  generally  cure  them- 
selves without  any  especial  treatment,  but  there  is  always  a  pos- 
sibility that  colds  if  neglected  may  run  into  something  serious. 
Ten  drops  of  aconite  in  two  quarts  of  drinking  water  is  a  simple 
and  good  remedy  when  administered  in  season.  For  mature  birds 
a  one-grain  quinine  pill  or  one  Laxative  Bromo  Quinine  Tablet, 
given  each  night  for  two  or  three  nights,  will  generally  do  the 
business.  The  tablet  should  be  greased,  so  that  it  will  slip  down 
easily.  Here  is  a  home-made  pill  that  is  effective.  Take  equal 
parts  cayenne  pepper,  sulphate  of  quinine  and  sulphate  of  iron — 
mix  together  with  extract  gentian ;  mould  into  pellets  about  the 
size  of  a  pea,  and  give  one  every  24  hours.  (This  is  not  a  bad 
remedy  for  human  beings,  doubling  or  trebling  the  dose.) 
Bronchitis  is  a  bad  cold  accompanied  by  coughing  or  rattling  in 
the  throat.  The  treatment  is  the  same  as  for  a  common  cold. 

THE  DREAD  SCOURGE— ROUP. 

Roup  is  now  believed  to  be  a  bacterial  disease — that  is,  dissem- 
inated by  means  of  germs — and  not  as  was  formerly  thought  the 
result  of  a  neglected  cold.  If  this  is  so,  roup  can  only  be  intro- 
duced from  outside;  it  cannot  originate  within.  But  it  can  be 
introduced  in  many  ways :  by  means  of  a  bird  bought  of  a  careless 
or  irresponsible  breeder,  by  means  of  excrement  brought  on  the 
feet,  by  means  of  germs  or  spores  floating  in  the  air.  The  seeds 
of  roup  will  remain  for  years,  so  that  it  is  never  safe  to  buy  an  old 
hen  house,  unless  you  are  absolutely  sure  the  disease  has  never 
been  within  its  walls.  Catarrh  is  often  mistaken  for  roup,  but  in 
catarrh  the  peculiar  smell  that  goes  with  roup  is  not  present. 

Each  new  case  as  it  comes  up  should  be  isolated.  Roup  may 
be  discovered  in  two  ways.  A  roupy  bird  generally  sleeps  with 
her  head  under  her  wing,  and  by  going  through  the  pen  at  night 
with  a  lantern  one  may  easily  find  her.  The  other  way  in  which 


76 

a  roupy  bird  may  be  told  is  by  a  slight  moisture  in  the  lower  cor- 
ner of  her  eye,  or  perhaps  little  bubbles  there.  In  well  developed 
cases  there  is  a  roup  smell  that  once  known  can  never  be  mistaken. 
All  suspects  should  be  quarantined,  fed  lightly  on  a  warm  mash  in 
which  there  is  a  little  ginger,  and  given  their  drinking  water  in 
disinfected  vessels.  Two  or  three  times  a  day  spray  their  nostrils 
and  mouths  with  the  following  solution :  Extract  witch  hazel,  four 
tablespoonfuls ;  water,  two  tablespoonfuls ;  carbolic  acid,  three 
drops.  Use  an  atomizer,  and  squeeze  the  bulb  five  times  for  each 
nostril  and  twice  for  the  mouth.  The  bird  will  often  recover 
under  this  treatment. 

THE   KEROSENE   TREATMENT   FOR   ROUP. 

It  is  a  question  whether  it  pays  to  doctor  a  severe  case  of  the 
roup.  Even  if  the  bird  lives  she  will  be  worthless  as  a  breeder, 
and  it  will  be  some  time  before  she  comes  into  s'hape  to  lay  again. 
A  sharp  hatchet  is  about  the  best  cure  for  roup  that  I  know  of. 
Still,  if  you  want  to  give  the  bird  a  chance,  try  the  kerosene  treat- 
ment,— in  my  judgment,  the  simplest  and  best  treatment  known. 
Take  a  wooden  pail  and  fill  it  two-thirds  full  of  water,  and  then 
pour  on  one-half  cupful  of  oil.  Take  bird  by  the  feet  and  dip  her 
head  under  water,  letting  it  stay  there  while  you  count  three. 
Wipe  the  bird  well  with  a  piece  of  soft  cloth,  and  return  to  the 
hospital.  Some  of  the  kerosene  will  percolate  through  the  outer 
skin,  and  some  will  be  taken  into  the  bird's  mouth  as  she  tries  to 
clean  up  her  feathers.  The  kerosene  uniting  with  the  pus  coag- 
ulates it,  and  in  a  few  days  the  mass  scales  off,  leaving  the  tongue 
pink  and  clean.  The  patient  is  still  weak,  and  should  be  kept  in 
the  hospital  a  while  longer  before  she  is  returned  to  her  mates. 

The  best  diet  in  roup  is  bread  moistened  with  milk.  The 
throat  is  so  tender  that  hard  food  cannot  be  swallowed.  I  had  a 
roupy  bird  that  I  had  kerosened.  She  seemed  to  be  doing  well, 
but  had  no  appetite.  I  tried  to  tempt  her  with  a  warm  mash,  but 
to  no  avail.  I  put  her  out  doors  to  see  if  the  warm  sunshine 
would  not  hasten  her  cure.  Soon  I  noticed  her  about  the  sink 
spout  picking  up  the  crumbs  that  ran  down  when  my  wife  washed 
the  dishes.  I  took  the  hint  and  gave  her  bread  soaked  in  milk. 
She  ate  heartily  and  made  a  fine  recovery. 

I  would  advise  the  poultryman  to  keep  some  standard  roup 
remedy  on  hand,  and  when  the  disease  breaks  out  to  use  the  medi- 


77 

cine  according  to  directions.  In  purchasing  a  remedy  select  one 
that  can  be  administered  in  the  food  or  water,  and  do  not  bother 
with  pills  or  powders  that  you  have  to  give  to  the  individual  bird. 

CHOLERA. 

Next  to  roup  the  most  serious  disease  that  the  poultryman  is 
called  upon  to  combat  is  cholera.  Cholera  would  be  even  more 
serious  than  roup  were  it  as  common.  It  is  a  disease  of  damp, 
hot  weather,  and  disappears  quickly  in  a  dry  time  or  upon  the 
approach  of  frost.  Like  roup  cholera  is  transmitted  by  means  of 
germs,  and  it  affects  not  only  the  domestic  fowls  but  some  of  the 
wild  birds  as  well. 

Approach  of  cholera  is  generally  heralded  by  loss  of  appetite 
on  the  part  of  the  birds  in  a  flock.  The  first  definite  symptom  is 
discoloration  of  the  urates,  or  the  tip  of  the  excrement ;  in  health 
the  urates  are  white,  but  in  cholera  the  urates  are  at  first  yellow, 
changing  as  the  disease  progresses  to  green.  Diarrhoea  sets  in. 
The  bird  separates  itself  from  the  rest,  stands  in  a  dejected  atti- 
tude with  roughened  plumage,  and  seems  asleep.  The  crop  is 
generally  distended  with  food  and  the  bird  when  aroused  is 
extremely  thirsty.  Great  weakness  follows,  and  in  a  short  time 
the  bird  dies. 

No  satisfactory  remedy  for  cholera  has  been  discovered. 
Remove  the  infected  birds  to  a  place  by  themselves,  and  when  one 
dies  burn  the  body  or  bury  it  so  deep  that  dogs  or  foxes  cannot  dig 
it  up.  Thoroughly  clean  up  the  house  and  yards,  and  bury  the 
excrement.  Sprinkle  the  floor  and  yards  with  a  solution  made  of 
one  pint  carbolic  acid  and  three  gallons  warm  water,  applied  with 
a  common  watering  pot. 

DISEASES   OF  THE   LIVER. 

Nine-tenths  of  the  diseases  that  afflict  laying  stock  come  from 
derangements  of  the  digestive  organs  and  of  the  liver.  In  order 
to  get  eggs  it  is  necessary  to  feed  highly,  and  this  reacts  upon  the 
health.  The  poultryman  must  expect  every  now  and  then  to  lose 
a  hen.  Fortunately  the  value  of  the  individual  hen  is  not  great, 
and  he  must  not  be  disheartened  if  he  finds  one  dead  from  time  to 
time.  When  hens  begin  to  drop  off— as  they  will  in  the  spring— 
the  poultryman  must  immediately  begin  to  revise  his  methods. 
He  must  feed  a  less  stimulating  ration,  give  more  green  food,  and 


78 

compel  his  hens  to  take  exercise.  A  teaspoonful  of  sulphate  mag- 
nesia to  each  pint  drinking  water,  given  for  a  week,  then  followed 
for  a  month  by  adding  one-fourth  grain  sulphate  strychnia  to  two 
quarts  water,  is  a  good  tonic.  Where  the  liver  is  affected,  as  will 
be  shown  by  the  color  of  the  comb — purple,  becoming  dark  and 
even  black — give  a  teaspoonful  of  castor  oil  once  a  day,  instead  of 
the  sulphate  of  magnesia  and  strychnia.  f 

CROP  BOUND. 

This  condition  is  sufficiently  described  by  the  name.  The  bird 
mopes  around,  dejected  in  appearance,  and  upon  examination  her 
crop  feels  as  if  she  had  swallowed  a  base  ball.  Give  her  a  table- 
spoonful  of  castor  oil  and  put  in  a  pen  by  herself  for  12  hours, 
when  the  mass  may  pass  away.  If  it  does  not  it  will  be  necessary 
to  operate.  You  will  need  someone  to  assist  you.  With  a  sharp 
knife  make  a  longitudinal  incision  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in 
length  in  the  upper  part  of  the  crop,  first  plucking  out  any  feathers 
that  may  be  in  the  way:  Take  a  small  hardwood  skewer,  such  as 
butchers  use,  and  begin  to  remove  the  contents  of  the  crop.  It 
will  take  some  time.  To  make  sure  that  everything  has  been 
removed  and  that  there  is  no  obstruction  insert  your  little  finger 
into  the  outlet  of  the  crop,  where  the  food  passes  into  the  gizzard. 
Rinse  out  the  crop  with  warm  water.  Sew  up  the  opening  in  the 
crop  with  silk  thread,  making  each  stitch  by  itself,  tying  and  cut- 
ting the  thread  before  making  another.  Do  the  same  thing  to  the 
outside  skin.  Put  the  bird  back  .in  the  pen  by  herself,  and  feed 
lightly  on  soft  food  for  a  few  days. 

SCALY  LEGS. 

"Scaly  legs  are  the  work  of  a  minute  parasite,  and  the  trouble 
is  contagious.  There  are  quite  a  number  of  remedies,  but  more 
depends  upon  care  for  a  few  weeks  than  anything  else.  Take 
three  tablespoonfuls  of  lard  and  add  to  it  two  tablespoonfuls  of 
kerosene  oil  and  one  of  glycerine;  then  drop  into  the  mixture 
(which  should  be  mixed  warm,  not  hot)  two  drops  of  carbolic 
acid.  Wash  the  legs  of  the  fowl  and  wipe  dry,  rub  on  the  mix- 
ture very  thickly,  having  it  warm,  not  overlooking  any  part. 
Repeat  this  twice  a  week  for  two  or  three  weeks  and  the  legs  will 
soon  become  clean  and  perfectly  smooth." 


79 

A   GOOD   TONIC. 

There  are  times  when  a  good  tonic  is  of  great  value  in  the 
poultry  yard.  After  a  long,  cold  winter  or  when  disease  makes 
its  appearance  and  it  is  desirable  to  reinforce  the  health  of  the 
fowls,  a  good  tonic  should  be  given.  Douglas  Mixture  is  one  of 
the  best,  and  is  used  by  poultrymen  everywhere.  It  is  made  as 
follows : 

Sulphate  of  iron,  8  oz. 

Sulphuric  acid,  £  oz. 

Water,  i  gal. 

Put  into  a  bottle  or  jug  one  gallon  water,  add  the  sulphate  of 
iron;  as  soon  as  the  iron  is  dissolved  add  the  acid.  When  the 
mixture  is  clear  it  is  ready  for  use.  Dose,  a  tablespoonful  to 
every  quart  of  drinking  water.  The  drinking  vessels  while  using 
this  tonic,  must  be  glass  or  glazed  earthenware. 

MOULTING. 

Moulting  is  not  a  disease,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  something 
abnormal  or  unnatural ;  but  it  is  a  disease  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a 
state  of  discomfort  or  dis-ease;  For  best  results  in  egg  produc- 
tion birds  should  be  helped  through  the  moult,  and  the  time 
should  be  made  as  brief  as  possible. 

Remove  all  males  from  the  flock  as  soon  as  moulting  begins, 
for  it  is  best  for  both  the  males  and  females  to  be  separated  at 
this  time.  Feed  about  as  usual,  only  be  sure  that  plenty  of  meat 
or  green  ground  bone  is  given  in  the  daily  ration,  and  that  plenty 
of  green  food  is  always  at  hand.  Three  times  a  week  in  dry, 
bright  weather  put  a  tablespoonful  of  flowers  of  sulphur  in  the 
mash  for  every  50  fowls,  and  on  alternate  days  a  tablespoonful  of 
carbonate  of  iron.  Do  not  give  the  carbonate  of  iron  to  white 
fowls,  unless  you  are  indifferent  as  to  the  purity  of  their  plum- 
age, for  it  will  give  the  new  feathers  a  creamy  or  brassy  tinge. 
If  this  treatment  is  kept  up  during  the  entire  moult  the  birds  will 
get  through  easily,  as  there  will  be  no  loss  of  strength,  nor  will 
any  of  them  hang  in  the  moult,  but  keep  on  until  completed. 

EGG  EATING:  HOW  TO  PREVENT  IT. 

Egg  eating  is  a  vice  that  is  much  easier  to  prevent  than  to 
cure.  Where  the  eggs  are  gathered  at  frequent  intervals,  where 
the  hens  are  supplied  with  plenty  of  material  for  making  shells, 


80 

where  the  hens  are  kept  busy  when  not  on  the  nests,  egg  eating  is 
practically  unknown. 

The  only  sure  cure  for  egg  eating  is  the  hatchet.  Before  this 
is  applied  however  an  effort  should  be  made  to  stop  the  vice.  Two 
or  more  china  eggs  should  be  p!aced  in  each  nest,  and  plenty  of 
these  eggs  strewn  in  the  litter  upon  the  floor.  Then  pare  the 
upper  beak  of  the  guilty  bird  until  it  shows  signs  of  bleeding,  so 
that  when  she  strikes  at  the  china  eggs  the  pain  will  make  her 
stop.  Generally  this  will  effect  a  cure.  Something  can  be  done 
by  having  the  nests  in  a  dark  place  and  so  arranged  that  it  is 
difficult  for  the  hen  to  get  at  the  egg  after  she  has  laid.  A  nail  keg 
makes  an  excellent  nest  for  egg-eating  hens.  I  have  known  men 
to  make  a  double-decked  nest,  so  that  the  egg  after  being  laid 
would  drop  through  a  small  hole  into  the  receptacle  below.  Raw 
salt  pork,  chopped  fine,  is  recommended  for  egg-eating  hens ;  but 
the  best  thing  is  never  to  allow  them  to  contract  the  habit. 

Mr.  S.  D.  Fox,  to  whom  I  have  several  times  referred,  has  a 
method  of  breaking  hens  of  egg  eating  as  novel  as  it  is  efficacious. 
"My  hens  got  to  eating  eggs  one  spring,"  he  says,  "and  I  went  to 
work  to  cure  them.  I  got  an  egg,  chipped  off  one  end  and  took 
out  the  yolk  and  white.  Then  I  filled  up  the  egg  with  soft  soap, 
sprinkled  in  a  good  stiff  dose  of  cayenne  pepper,  stuck  on  the  end 
with  white  court  plaster,  and  dropped  the  egg  on  the  hen  house 
floor.  They  eat  that  egg.  The  next  day  I  give  'em  another. 
They  eat  that.  The  next  day  I  give  'em  a  third.  They  didn't 
eat  that,  and  they  never  eat  another  so  far  as  I  know.  Didn't  like 
the  flavor,  I  guess.  Hurt 'em?  Wall,  no,  I  never  see  that  it  did. 
Might  have  cleaned  'em  out  a  little — soft  soap  is  good  for  that, 
you  know — but  it  didn't  rumple  a  feather,  so  far  as  I  could  see." 


CHAPTER   XIII. 


PRODUCTS  AND  BY=PRODUCTS. 


Producing  the  eggs  and  rearing  the  chicks  form  but  a  part, 
and  perhaps  the  smallest  part,  of  the  poultryman's  business.  In 
order  to  make  money  he  must  market  the  product  to  the  best 
advantage.  It  is  here,  I  am  convinced,  that  the  majority  of  poul- 
trymen  fail.  They  are  not  good  business  men.  They  work  hard 
enough,  but  do  not  calculate  closely  and  do  not  sell  at  the  right 
time  or  at  the  right  place.  In  these  days  when  competition  is  so 
close  and  the  margin  for  profit  so  narrow,  the  difference  between 
profit  and  loss  in  the  poultry  business  may  consist  in  the  manner 
in  which  the  product  is  put  on  the  market. 

The  man  who  keeps  but  a  few  hens  and  does  not  make  poul- 
try raising  his  principal  occupation,  will  probably  do  better  to  sell 
his  eggs  and  poultry  to  his  regu'ar  grocer  than  to  hunt  up  private 
customers.  It  is  true  that  he  may  receive  a  cent  or  two  a  dozen 
more  if  h'e  sells  at  houses,  but  this  is  more  than  offset  by  the  loss 
in  time.  The  grocer  is  not  so  particular  about  his  eggs,  so  long 
as  they  are  fresh,  as  is  the  private  customer,  and  will  take  eggs  of 
all  sizes  and  colors.  It  is  true  he  does  not  wish  to  pay  in  cash, 
but  the  profit  on  his  goods  is  about  the  only  profit  he  makes  on 
the  transaction ;  for  the  grocer  is  often  compelled  to  sell  eggs  for 
just  what  he  gave  for  them.  The  grocers  are  the  great  buyers  of 
eggs  throughout  the  land. 

The  man  who  keeps  hens  on  a  larger  scale,  and  who  wants  to 
make  the  most  out  of  the  business  with  the  least  trouble,  will  do 
well  to  make  an  arrangement  with  a  city  grocer  to  ship  him  a  cer- 
tain number  of  cases  each  week  throughout  the  year.  The  poul- 
tryman  should  go  to  the  city  and  see  the  grocer  personally.  The 
chances  are  he  will  get  an  order.  This  is  far  more  profitable  than 
selling  to  the  local  grocer.  In  the  town  where  I  live  I  have  seldom 
known  eggs  to  go  above  30  cents  a  dozen,  and  they  remain  at  this 
figure  but  a  short  time ;  while  in  the  cities  to  the  south  of  us  they 
sometimes  sell  as  high  as  45  or  50  cents. 

The  poultryman  who  produces  a  gilt-edged  product  can  often 
market  to  private  customers  to  advantage.  The  hotels  will  take 
a  limited  number  of  fancy  fresh  eggs.  They  do  not  take  so  many 


82 

as  one  would  think,  because  in  cooking  they  use  cold  storage  eggs. 
Clubs  are  good  customers,  and  will  pay  a  fancy  price  for  a  fancy 
article.  Druggists  use  a  large  number  of  brown  eggs  in  connec- 
tion with  their  soda  trade,  and  will  often  pay  a  good  price  for 
fresh  eggs  of  good  color.  There  are  private  families  that  will 
gladly  pay  the  poultryman  the  same  price  they  have  to  pay  for 
eggs  at  the  store,  and  pay  in  cash.  The  advantage  of  having  pri- 
vate customers  is,  that  one  can  sell  them  beside  eggs,  poultry,  veg- 
etables, cream,  berries  and  other  products  of  the  farm  and  garden. 

PRESERVING  EGGS. 

There  is  always  a  time  in  spring  when  eggs  are  very  cheap. 
The  poultryman  can  add  to  his  profits  and  at  the  same  time  relieve 
the  congestion  in  the  market  by  improving  this  opportunity  to  lay 
down  a  supply  of  eggs  for  home  consumption  for  the  year  to 
come.  I  do  not  believe  in  selling  these  preserved  eggs  for  fresh 
eggs,  but  there  is  no  reason  why  the  poultryman  should  not  use 
them  in  his  own  family.  Neither  is  there  any  objection  to  selling 
them  in  the  fall,  provided  they  are  sold  for  just  what  they  are — 
preserved  eggs  and  not  fresh  eggs.  I  know  a  man  who  every 
spring  when  eggs  are  cheap  lays  down  400  dozen,  and  then  about 
Thanksgiving  sells  them  for  a  little  less  per  dozen  than  is  asked 
for  the  best  fresh  eggs,  clearing  up  about  $60  by  the  deal.  A 
profit  of  150  per  cent,  in  six  months  leaves  Wall  Street  out  of 
sight.  There  are  two  absolutely  sure  methods  of  keeping  eggs, 
"both  of  which  I  print.  These  methods  are  the  soluble  glass  and 
the  lime  water  methods.  Of  the  two  I  prefer  the  soluble  glass, 
as  cleaner  and  more  convenient.  Bear  in  mind,  however,  that  no 
method  under  the  sun  will  keep  eggs  fresh  which  are  not  fresh 
when  laid  down! 

LIME   WATER    METHOD. 

Slack  four  pounds  lime,  and  then  add  four  pounds  salt,  stir- 
ring well  together.  Add  eight  gallons  water.  Stir  and  leave  to 
settle.  The  next  day  stir  again.  After  the  mixture  has  settled 
the  second  time  draw  off  or  carefully  dip  out  the  clear  liquid- 
Take  two  ounces  each  of  baking  soda,  cream  of  tartar,  saltpetre, 
and  a  little  alum.  Pulverize  and  mix,  and  dissolve  in  two  quarts 
boiling  water.  Add  this  to  the  lime  water.  Put  the  eggs  in  a 
stone  jar,  small  end  down,  one  layer  on  top  of  another,  and  pour 


83 

on  the  solution.  Set  the  jar  away  in  a  cool  place.  This  process 
has  been  secret  in  the  past,  and  the  recipe  has  been  widely  sold 
for  $5.  The  method  is  quite  satisfactory,  although  not  so  good 
as  the  method  of  preserving  in  soluble  glass,  as  the  eggs  are  liable 
to  have  a  somewhat  limy  taste. 

SOLUBLE  GLASS   METHOD. 

Soluble  glass,  or  sodium  silicate,  is  a  liquid  of  a  rather  smooth, 
slippery  consistency,  readily  soluble  in  water.  It  is  used  by  physi- 
cians for  coating  bandages,  where  it  is  desired  to  protect  the 
injured  part  from  the  air,  and  may  be  obtained  through  any  drug- 
gist at  a  cost  of  about  75  cents  a  gallon.  For  preserving  eggs 
use  one  part  soluble  glass  to  about  10  parts  pure  water.  Put  the 
eggs  in  a  stone  jar,  small  end  down,  one  layer  on  top  of  another 
until  the  jar  is  filled,  then  pour  on  the  solution.  If  the  specific 
gravity  of  the  solution  is  greater  than  that  of  the  eggs,  as  is  some- 
times the  case,  add  water  until  the  eggs  will  just  sink. 

SALICYLIC  ACID  AND  COLD   STORAGE. 

The  West  Virginia  Agricultural  Experiment  Station  has  been 
studying  methods  of  preserving  eggs,  and  finds  that  the  treatment 
with  salicylic  acid  followed  by  cold  storage  is  quite  efficacious. 
The  station  does  not  claim  that  the  method  has  passed  the  experi- 
mental stage,  and  does  not  advise  anyone  to  use  it  except  in  an 
experimental  way.  It  is  worth  trying,  and  is  as  follows :  "Sub- 
merge the  fresh  eggs  for  5  or  10  minutes  in  a  solution  of  one 
ounce  of  salicylic  acid  in  one  quart  of  strong  alcohol ;  and  imme- 
diately on  removing  the  eggs  from  the  solution,  and  while  they  are 
still  wet,  wrap  them  in  sterilized  cotton  and  store  in  a  box  or  bar- 
rel in  a  dry  room  the  temperature  of  which  does  not  go  above  60 
degrees  Fahrenheit." 

WOOD  ASHES  OR  SALT. 

There  are  many  however  who  desire  a  simpler  method  than 
any  of  these  described,  and  to  such  I  would  recommend  either 
wood  ashes  or  salt.  Wood  ashes  are  excellent.  Experiments 
conducted  by  the  National  Agricultural  School  in  Germany  show 
that  eggs  may  be  kept  a  year  packed  in  wood  ashes,  with  a  loss  of 
only  20  per  cent.  Wood  ashes  are  cleanly,  convenient  and  always 
at  hand.  Salt  also  is  good.  Use  a  grade  of  salt  a  little  coarser 


84 

than  table  salt, — what  is  called  coarse-fine  salt.  Pack  the  eggs  in 
a  stone  jar.  Put  in  first  a  layer  of  salt,  then  a  layer  of  eggs,  and 
so  on  until  the  jar  is  filled.  Stand  the  eggs  upon  the  small  ends, 
and  do  not  let  them  touch.  Cover  them  completely  with  salt.  Set 
the  jar  in  a  cool  place.  I  have  known  eggs  packed  in  this  way  to 
keep  a  year,  and  to  be  as  good  at  the  end  of  that  time  for  cooking 
as  if  laid  but  a  few  days  before. 

POULTRY    MANURE— A     VALUABLE     BY-PRODUCT. 

Poultry  manure  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  by-product.  It  is 
a  highly  stimulating  manure.  It  is  also  a  rich  plant  food.  Poul- 
try manure  is  more  than  twice  as  valuable  as  sheep  or  hog 
manure,  and  more  than  three  times  as  valuable  as  ordinary  stable 
manure,  as  the  following  table  will  show : 


G 

u 
'C 

fe 

| 

1 

.G 

CA 

03 

1 

II 

Sheep  

Per  cent. 

.  .    o  768 

/Vr  «»/. 

/^r  c<?«/. 

o  591 

o 

Pigs  . 

o  840 

O  ^2O 

Cows  

.  o  4.26 

o  290 

O  AAO 

2  O2 

Horses   

O  AGO 

o  260 

o  480 

2  21 

Poultry  Manure  . 

o  800  to 

o  500  to 

o  800  to 

2.000 

2.OOO 

0.900 

Poultry  manure  is  so  powerful  that  great  care  must  be  taken  in 
applying  it.  It  should  never  be  allowed  to  come  into  direct  con- 
tact with  the  roots  of  the  growing  plant.  When  applied  in  the 
hill  it  should  be  well  mixed  with  the  soil. 

Poultry  manure  supplies  nitrogen  in  large  quantities  in  the  form 
of  ammonia,  but  ammonia  being  a  highly  volatile  product  is  rapidly 
dissipated.  The  problem  of  the  poultrymen,  therefore,  in  dealing 
with  hen  manure  is  to  find  some  substance  that  will  fix  the  ammo- 
nia. Sifted  earth  is  not  good,  for  it  is  apt  to  contain  bacteria 
which  act  destructively  on  the  ammonia  compounds.  Wood 
ashes  are  worse  than  nothing,  for  they  do  not  hold  ammonia,  but 
drive  it  off  by  their  caustic  alkaline  properties. 

The  best  thing  I  have  found  to  preserve  the  ammonia  in  hen 


85 

manure  is  gypsum  or  land  plaster,  which  may  be  bought  for  50 
cents  per  100  pounds.  Scatter  a  few  handfuls  of  plaster  over  the 
droppings  before  you  remove  them  in  the  morning,  and  see  that 
it  is  thoroughly  incorporated.  The  result  is  a  compound  as  valu- 
able as  any  commercial  fertilizer.  The  droppings  from  a  fowl 
in  one  year,  when  treated  in  this  way,  are  worth  one-half  what  it 
costs  to  feed  her. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 


THE  END  OF  THE  TWO  HUNDRED  EGG  HEN. 


The  poultryman  who  keeps  from  300  to  500  head  of  laying 
stock  will  have  a  good  deal  of  poultry  to  dispose  of,  especially  if 
he  follows  my  advice  in  this  book  to  keep  pullets,  principally,  for 
layers.  It  will  be  quite  a  problem  to  dispose  of  this  stock  to  the 
best  advantage.  In  passing  I  would  remark  that  the  poultryman 
should  keep  his  own  table  well  supplied.  Plump  and  juicy 
broilers  and  roasters  are  just  as  good  for  him  as  they  are  for  any 
one  else.  There  is  no  reason  why  the  poultryman's  table  should 
not  rejoice  once  a  week  with  broilers  or  roasters.  During  the 
summer  there  is  in  most  towns  a  good  market  for  poultry.  The 
poultryman  should  steadily  cull  from  his  flock,  and  about  moult- 
ing time  have  a  grand  "round  up,"  selling  the  fowls  for  what 
they  will  bring, — except  those  he  wishes  to  keep  over  for  breeders. 
Quite  a  number  of  live  cockerels  may  be  disposed  of  among  the 
farmers  in  the  fall  if  the  poultryman  keeps  a  popular  breed  and 
will  sell  for  a  fair  price. 

KILLING   AND   DRESSING   FOWLS    FOR   MARKET. 

i.  Take  the  bird  from  the  roost  at  night,  36  hours  before  it 
is  to  be  killed,  and  shut  it  up  in  comfortable  quarters.  The  next 
morning  give  it  a  good  breakfast,  but  nothing  more  to  eat  after 
this  until  it  is  killed.  Let  it  have  all  the  water  it  will  drink.  The 
water  will  add  greatly  to  the  fowl's  comfort  and  assist  in  evacu- 
ating the  bowels.  The  confinement  is  for  the  purpose  of  having 
the  fowl  at  hand  and  of  emptying  the  crop. 


86 

2.  Suspend  the  fowl  by  the  feet  at  a  convenient  height  with 
a  soft  cord,  the  upper  end  of  which  is  secured  to  a  hook  or  nail  in 
the  ceiling  or  beam  over  head. 

3.  Lock  the  wings  together  behind  the  back,  to  prevent  flap- 
ping.    Do  this  carefully,  so  that  they  will  hot  be  dislocated. 

4.  Take  the  tip  of  the  wings  in  the  left  hand,  and  with  the 
right  strike  the  fowl  a  smart  blow  on  the  head  with  a  stick  or 
cudgel.     Strike  hard  enough  to  produce  concussion  of  the  brain 
and  unconsciousness. 

5.  Grasp  the  fowl  by  the  comb  or  by  the  feathers  at  the  back 
of  the  head  with  the  left  hand,  and  with  the  right  insert  the  blade 
of  a  sharp  knife  in  the  neck  just  back  of  the  ear  lobe,  on  the  under 
side  of  the  neck  bone  and  parallel  with  it.     Run  the  blade  clear 
through  the  neck.     When  you  withdraw  the  blade  twist  it  to  right 
angles  with  the  neck  bone,  severing  the  artery  in  the  throat,  and 
causing  the  blood  to  flow  profusely. 

6.  Begin  to  pluck  immediately.  Pluck  up  the  breast  and  sides 
to  tail.     Remove  tail  feathers.     Unlock  the  wings,  and  strip  them 
of  long  feathers.     Remove  feathers  from  around  vent.     Pluck 
the  feathers  from  back.     Finish  plucking.     If  done  quickly  the 
feathers  will  come  out  easily  and  the  skin  will  not  be  torn.     The 
bird  should  be  entirely  denuded  of  feathers  in  10  minutes.     In 
case  rents  are  made  sew  them  up  neatly  with  white  thread. 

7.  If  the  fowl  is  to  be  drawn,  with  a  sharp  knife  cut  a  slit 
about  an  inch  long  back  of  the  vent  and  parallel  with  it,  through 
which  insert  index  finger,  hooking  it  into  the  intestines.  Remove 
intestines.     The  lower  end  of  the  intestines  and  the  egg  sac  may 
be  removed  by  enlarging  the  slit  in  the  shape  of  a  half  circle,  until 
it  joins  the  ends  of  the  vent.     This  will  make  a  round  hole  about 
the  size  of  a  silver  half  dollar.     After  removing  the  intestines  cut 
off  the  fowl's  head,  then  draw  back  the  skin  and  take  off  about  an 
inch  of  the  neck  bone,  pull  the  skin  forward  and  tie. 

8.  "For  the  Boston  and  New  England  markets  the  poultry 
should  be  picked  perfectly  clean.     For  the  New  York  markets  the 
tip  feathers  of  the  wings  are  left  on.     Do  not  singe  the  bodies  for 
the  purpose  of  removing  any  down  or  hair,  as  the  heat  from  the 
flame  will  give  them  an  oily  and  unsightly  appearance." 

9.  "Plumping  is  recommended  by  some  dealers,  and  consists 
in  dipping  the  carcass  as  soon  as  thoroughly  picked  for  10  seconds 
in  water  nearly  or  quite  boiling  hot,  and  then  immediately  into 


87 

ice-cold  water."     This  makes  the  meat  look  plump  and  fatt  con- 
siderably improving  its  appearance. 

10.  "The  laws  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  do  not 
require  poultry  to  be  drawn.  In  the  former  State  however  the 
crop  must  be  drawn  if  there  is  food  in  it  at  the  time  of  killing. 
Custom,  which  is  quite  as  potent  as  statute  law,  requires  that 
poultry  marketed  in  Massachusetts  be  drawn; and  carefully  drawn 
poultry  will  sell  so  much  more  readily  and  for  so  much  better 
prices,  that  it  pays  well  to  comply  with  this  demand." 

TO  SCALD  A  FOWL. 

Where  the  fowl  is  to  be  eaten  at  home,  or  where  it  is  sold  for 
immediate  consumption,  many  prefer  to  remove  the  feathers  by 
scalding.  There  is  a  right  and  a  wrong  way  to  do  this.  The 
right  way  is  as  follows :  Kill  in  the  manner  described  in  preceding 
section.  After  the  blood  has  stopped  dripping  from  the  wound 
take  a  wooden  pail,  or  some  other  receptacle,  fill  it  three-fourths 
full  of  boiling  water,  and  into  this  pour  a  pint  of  cold  water  to 
reduce  the  temperature  a  little  below  the  boiling  point.  Take  the 
fowl  by  the  neck  and  legs  and  dip  it  into  the  water  twice, — once 
with  the  breast  downward  and  once  with  the  back, — getting  it  in 
and  out  of  the  water  as  quickly  as  possible.  Hang  the  fowl  up 
again,  and  begin  to  pluck.  When  the  feathers  have  been  removed 
and  the  intestines  drawn,  dip  out  two  quarts  of  water  from  the 
pail,  putting  two  quarts  of  boiling  water  in  its  place.  Put  the 
carcass  into  this,  and  let  it  stay  10  seconds,  then  take  it  out  and 
put  it  in  water  nearly  if  not  quite  ice  cold,  letting  it  stay  10  min- 
utes. This,  as  has  been  explained,  is  "plumping,"  and  gives  the 
carcass  a  very  plump  and  inviting  appearance.  Put  a  tablespoon- 
ful  of  salt  into  the  cold  water  at  the  same  time  the  fowl  is  put  in. 
Hang  up  the  fowl  in  a  cool  place  until  it  is  to  be  cooked  or  sold. 
Fowls  treated  in  this  way  present  an  excellent  appearance,  and 
will  keep  several  days  without  discoloration. 

PACKING  AND   SHIPPING. 

''Carefully  sew  up  all  rents  or  torn  places  on  the  skin,  wash 
clean  in  cool  water,  wipe  dry  and  hang  in  a  cool  place  until  the 
animal  heat  is  entirely  out,  before  packing.  Pack  in  clean  barrels 
or  boxes  with  clean  straw,  as  follows :  first  a  thin  layer  of  straw 
and  then  a  layer  of  poultry  in  the  same  posture  in  which  they  roost, 


then  a  layer  of  straw  and  another  of  poultry,  and  so  on  until  the 
barrel  or  box  is  quite  full,  finishing  with  a  layer  of  straw  which 
should  be  tucked  firmly  into  any  crevices  in  the  sides.  Nail  th£ 
corners  or  head  on  securely,  and  mark  carefully  with  the  name 
and  address  of  the  dealer  to  whom  you  ship,  not  forgetting  your 
name  and  address  as  shipper ;  and  notify  the  dealer  by  postal  or 
letter  that  you  have  shipped  him  one  or  more  boxes  or  barrels  of 
dressed  poultry  by  freight  or  express,  as  the  case  may  be. 
Always  take  a  receipt  from  the  freight  or  express  agent,  and  ship 
so  as  to  reach  the  market  not  later  than  Friday." 

SHIPPING    FOWLS    ALIVE. 

The  great  majority  of  fowls  that  are  sent  to  market  are 
shipped  alive.  Commission  men  prefer  them  in  this  way.  They 
can  kill  them  in  lots  as  desired,  and  can  dress  them  to  suit  the 
fancy  or  caprice  of  their  customers.  The  Jews,  who  are  now  a 
large  and  important  element  in  our  cities,  will  not  eat  fowls,  unless 
they  are  killed  by  a  rabbi,  and  this  makes  a  constant  demand  for 
live  poultry.  Fowls  are  generally  shipped  by  express  in  old 
strawberry  crates  or  small  light  boxes  of  some  sort.  Before  being 
sent  off  they  shouM  be  given  all  the  whole  corn  they  will  eat  and 
be  watered.  Commission  men  are  continually  sending  out  circu- 
lars soliciting  shipments.  Some  of  these  men  are  reliable  and 
some  are  not.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  safe  to  make 
consignments  to  firms  that  occupy  stalls  in  public  markets  or  who 
have  been  in  business  a  term  of  years.  Men  who  have  their 
offices  or  places  of  business  in  obscure  quarters  or  who  have  lately 
started  should  be  investigated.  If  they  are  all  right  the  investiga- 
tion will  do  them  no  harm,  and  if  they  are  not  all  right  it  may 
save  the  shipper  a  loss  he  can  ill  afford. 


CHAPTER   XV. 


SALAD  AND  DRESSING. 


Never  get  too  old  to  learn. 

About  as  many  failures  in  the  poultry  business  come  from 
keeping  100  fowls  where  there  is  room  for  only  25,  as  from  any 
other  source. 

Sitting  hens  should  not  be  allowed  to  dust  in  coal  ashes,  as  the 
fine  particles  clog  the  pores  in  the  egg  shells.  Dry  earth  is  the 
best  stuff  for  a  sitting  hen  to  dust  in. 

Kainit  may  be  substituted  for  plaster  to  mix  with  the  manure 
in  case  a  manure  particularly  rich  in  potash  is  wanted,  and  acid 
phosphate  may  be  substituted  for  a  rich  phosphatic  manure. 

It  is  a  good  plan  for  a  poultryman  to  keep  a  few  standard 
remedies  on  hand  all  the  time.  Then  if  disease  comes  down  upon 
him  like  the  wolf  on  the  fold,  he  is  in  a  measure  prepared  to 
meet  it. 

Lice  multiply  upon  a  sick  fowl,  because  its  vitality  is  so 
depleted  that  it  cannot  keep  itself  clean.  Accordingly,  when  you 
remove  a  sick  fowl  to  the  hospital  for  treatment  give  it  a  good 
dusting  with  insect  powder  before  you  administer  the  medicine. 

Introduce  new  blood  from  time  to  time,  but  do  not  introduce 
it  indiscriminately.  Find  a  man  who  is  working  along  the  same 
lines  with  yourself,  and  get  your  males  from  him.  Breed  in  two 
years,  and  the  third  year  send  away  to  the  same  man  for  more 
males. 

Green  ground  bone  is  a  grand  food  for  fowls,  but  it  must  be 
fresh  and  not  fed  in  too  great  quantity.  A  correspondent  writes 
that  she  lost  77  out  of  a  flock  of  94  beautiful  chicks  in  three  weeks 
by  feeding  ground  bone  that  she  bought  of  a  local  dealer.  Prob- 
ably the  bone  was  tainted,  or  she  fed  too  much. 

RATS. — Rats  are  naturally  granivorous,  and  prefer  corn  to 
anything  else.  The  poultryman  should  take  advantage  of  this 
fact.  Let  him  scatter  a  handful  of  whole  corn  about  each  rat 
hole,  and  the  rat  will  not  molest  the  chicks.  It  may  seem  rather 
expensive  to  feed  rats  on  corn,  but  it  is  not  so  expensive  as  it  is  to 
feed  them  on  chicken  meat.  The  poultryman  should  keep  his 
eye  peeled  and  his  traps  set  for  the  rascals  at  the  same  time. 


90 

EGGS  FOR  HATCHING. — How  -long  may  eggs  for  hatching 
safely  be  kept  ?  To  find  out,  go  and  ask  the  old  hen  that  has 
stolen  her  nest.  She  will  tell  you  that  she  has  been  hiding  away 
eggs  in  the  haymow  or  under  the  barn  for  at  least  three  weeks, 
and  that  she  expects  every  egg  to  hatch  a  chick.  In  a  tempera- 
ture of  from  40  to  60  degrees,  eggs  may  safely  be  kept  at  least 
three  weeks  before  they  are  put  in  an  incubator  or  under  a  hen. 
They  should  be  turned  every  day. 

MEDIUM-SIZED  FOWL  CALLED  FOR. — The  market  now  calls 
for  a  medium-sized  fowl.  There  was  a  time  when  the  demand 
was  for  "old  hoosiers,"  but  that  day  has  gone  forever.  I  will  tell 
you  why.  A  bird  dressing  ten  pounds  has  no  more  legs  or  wings 
than  a  bird  dressing  four  or  five.  In  the  case  of  a  large  fowl 
part  of  the  meat  is  left  uneaten  on  the  plate.  In  the  case  of  a 
medium-sized  fowl,  a  leg  or  wing  is  just  right  for  an  order. 
Shrewd  buyers  have  learned  that  it  is  more  profitable  to  buy  two 
medium-sized  fowls  than  one  large  one.  There  is  still  an  occa- 
sional call  for  a  large  fowl,  but  the  smaller  ones  are  the  better 
sellers. 

BE  GENTLE. — Be  gentle  with  your  birds.  The  hen  is  natur- 
ally timid  and  easily  scared.  When  kindly  treated  however  she 
becomes  tame.  Much  of  the  pleasure  in  keeping  fowls  comes 
from  having  them  so  tame  that  they  will  let  their  owner  work 
among  them  and  even  handle  them  at  his  will.  One  should  never 
lose  his  temper,  no  matter  how  great  the  provocation.  The  hen  is 
not  a  reasoning  creature  and  often  sorely  tries  her  owner's 
patience.  But  if  he  never  allows  himself  to  get  angry  or  treat  her 
unkindly  no  matter  what  she  may  do,  poultry  keeping  becomes 
not  only  a  source  of  pleasure  and  profit  but  a  means  of  moral  dis- 
cipline not  to  be  despised.  "Blessed  are  the  meek,  for  they  shall 
inherit  the  earth,"  is  a  beatitude  as  true  in  the  poultry  business  as 
it  is  elsewhere. 

-Precocious  pullets  seldom  make  phenomenal  layers. 

Dry  planer  shavings  make  the  best  material  for  nests. 

Select  a  breed  of  fowl  as  you  do  a  wife — to  please  yourself. 

Don't  go  into  the  poultry  business  unless  you  have  a  "call" 
to  it. 

There  is  little  danger  of  overfeeding  hens  after  they  begin 
to  lay. 

Clear  poultry  manure,  lightly  sprinkled  with  coal  ashes  or  land 
plaster  to  fix  the  ammonia,  is  worth  a  dollar  a  barrel. 


91 

If  your  method  of  feeding  gives  good  results  don't  change  it 
because  you  happen  to  read  of  someone  else  who  feeds  differently. 

The  fool  knows  it  all  to  begin  with.  The  wise  man  learns  by 
his  experience.  The  wisest  man  learns  by  his  experience  and  the 
experience  of  others. 

Read  this  book  over  time  and  again  until  you  have  thoroughly 
assimilated  it.  The  closer  you  follow  its  teachings  the  more  dol- 
lars you  will  make. 

To  get  rid  of  the  neighbor's  cat,  explode  a  torpedo  under  her 
tail  whenever  she  comes  around.  This  will  scare  the  cat,  but  do 
her  no  permanent  harm.  The  neighbor  will  appreciate  the  joke, 
and  you  will  get  rid  of  the  cat  and  keep  your  neighbor's  good  will 
at  the  same  time. 

After  a  hen  has-  laid  an  egg  she  cackles.  Go  and  do  thou 
likewise !  If  your  birds  have  taken  a  prize  at  the  county  fair, 
cackle.  If  they  have  made  a  big  egg  record,  cackle.  If  you  have 
some  fine  stock  to  sell,  cackle.  In  these  days  publicity  and  pros- 
perity go  together. 

Does  it  pay  to  caponize?  About  this,  as  about  everything 
else,  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion.  It  takes  so  long  to  bring  a 
capon  to  maturity  that  the  gain  in  size  is  offset  by  the  extra  cost 
for  food,  to  say  nothing  of  the  care.  Unless  you  have  a  special 
market,  better  not  bother  with  capons. 

If  you  are  in  the  business  for  eggs,  and  eggs  alone,  the  sooner 
you  get  rid  of  your  surplus  "crowers"  the  better.  I  know  a  man 
who  disposes  of  his  cockerels,  as  soon  as  he  can  distinguish  them 
from  the  pullets,  for  10  cents  each.  He  claims  he  is  better  off  to 
sell  them  for  this  sum  than  to  keep  them. 

Some  think  the  shape  of  the  egg  determines  the  sex  of  the 
chick  that  is  to  be  hatched.  This  is  a  mistake.  The  shape  of  the 
egg  has  no  effect  upon  the  sex  of  the  germ  it  contains.  A  more 
plausible  theory  is  that  the  shape  of  the  egg  will  influence  the 
shape  of  the  chick  that  begins  its  life  in  it, — a  long  egg  giving  a 
long,  rangey  chick,  and  a  short,  round  egg  a  more  blocky  chick. 
This  is  worth  investigating. 

Don't  be  in  too  much  of  a  hurry  to  have  your  chicks  begin  to 
roost.  Put  the  roost  in  their  house  one  foot  from  the  floor  and  let 
them  find  out  what  it  is  there  for  themselves.  Some  adventurous 
chick  will  discover  it  after  a  while  and  get  upon  it;  others  will 
follow,  and  after  a  few  weeks  the  whole  flock  will  be  roosting  at 
night.  Should  there  be  any  laggards  drive  them  about  with  the 


92 

soft  end  of  the  broom  one  or  two  nights  until  they  are  glad  to  get 
on  the  roost  with  the  rest. 

The  worst  feature  of  the  poultry  business  is  its  slavery.  The 
poultryman  must  be  on  deck  365  days  in  a  year,  and  in  leap  years 
366.  Sundays  and  holidays  bring  little  relief ;  for  the  stock  must 
be  fed  and  watered,  the  eggs  collected,  and  the  chicks  and  sitting 
hens  looked  after  as  well  as  at  other  times.  On  small  plants  it  is 
difficult  to  get  a  man  to  step  in  for  a  few  days,  who  will  not 
demoralize  the  whole  thing.  No  man  should  go  into  the  poultry 
business  who  does  not  have  a  real  love  for  it;  otherwise  the 
monotony  and  slavery  will  become  intolerable. 

What  rewards  may  a  well-equipped  poultryman  expect?  Not 
a  fortune.  You  can  count  on  your  fingers,  almost,  the  men  who 
have  made  fortunes  in  the  poultry  business.  And  these  men  have 
made  their  money  by  selling  birds  and  eggs  to  breeders  rather 
than  by  catering  to  the  regular  trade.  But  a  careful,  industrious 
man,  one  who  has  a  real  liking  for  the  work  and  has  gone  into  it 
intelligently,  may  reasonably  expect  a  good  living,  a  pleasant 
home,  health,  and  the  independence  that  comes  from  being  one's 
own  master. 

NOVEL  WAY  TO  BREAK  UP  A  HEN. — After  you  have  tried 
every  other  method  you  can  think  of  to  break  up  a  hen,  without 
avail,  just  tie  a  piece  of  red  string  or  tape  to  her  tail.  Tie  it  so 
that  there  wilt  be  two  loose  ends,  each  about  six  inches  long,  to 
flutter  behind.  The  hen  will  at  once  lose  all  interest  in  a  seden- 
tary life,  and  will  start  out  of  the  house  as  if  she  was  going  to  a 
fire.  She  will  run  until  she  is  tired  out,  when  she  will  stop ;  then 
she  will  start  in  and  after  a  short  rest  run  again.  When  night 
comes  you  will  find  her  on  the  roost,  cured.  Take  the  ribbon  off 
her  tail,  if  she  has  not  got  it  off  herself.  This  may  seem  an  heroic 
method,  but  as  Shakspere  observes : 

"Diseases  desperate  grown 
By  desperate  appliance  are  relieved, 
Or  not  at  all." 

ECONOMY,  PRACTICABILITY. — In  preparing  this  book  I  have 
been  governed  by  two  considerations :  economy,  practicability. 
By  economy  I  mean  not  only  frugality  in  the  use  of  money,  but 
also  frugality  in  the  use  of  time.  I  am  aware  that  the  great 
majority  of  those  who  keep  fowls  are  not  able  to  devote  their 
whole  time  to  the  business,  but  must  combine  poultry  keeping 


93 

with  other  pursuits.  I  have  had  this  class  in  mind  in  writing  this 
book,  and  have  endeavored  to  show  how  the  maximum  of  profit 
may  be  obtained  with  the  minimum  of  effort.  Every  statement  in 
the  book  has  been  tested  by  actual  experience,  and  may  be  relied 
upon  implicitly.  I  expect  to  learn  as  long  as  I  live  and  to  mod- 
ify details  from  time  to  time,  but  never  expect  to  depart  radically 
from  the  principles  laid  down  in  these  pages. 

To  DUST  A  HEN. — With  your  left  hand  grasp  the  hen  by  the 
legs,  and  lay  her  breast-down  upon  a  newspaper.  The  powder 
should  be  in  a  tin  box  with  a  handle  and  a  perforated  cover. 
Sprinkle  the  powder  into  the  feathers  around  the  vent,  rubbing  it 
in  well.  Work  the  powder  into  the  feathers  about  the  neck. 
Work  the  powder  into  the  feathers  on  the  sides  and  under  the 
wings.  Let  the  hen  stand  a  moment,  keeping  your  hands  lightly 
around  her  so  that  she  cannot  get  away.  Return  her  to  the  roost 
and  take  another.  After  going  through  the  pen  shake  the  powder 
that  has  fallen  on  the  newspaper  back  into  the  can  or  package. 
One  application  kills  the  lice  that  are  on  the  hen  at  the  time,  but  in 
a  week  there  will  be  another  brood.  The  best  poultrymen  recom- 
mend dusting  a  hen  at  least  three  times,  at  intervals  a  week  apart, 
and  never  admitting  a  strange  hen  into  the  pen  without  first  dust- 
ing her  thoroughly.  One  lousy  hen  will  contaminate  all  the  rest, 
and  so  it  is  necessary  to  be  on  one's  guard  all  the  time. 

CAUSES  OF  DISEASE. — The  more  troublesome  diseases  of  fowls, 
with  their  causes,  may  be  summed  up  as  follows:  Roup — intro- 
duced by  germs.  Cholera — filth  and  overcrowding.  Diarrhoea — 
damp  houses,  filthy  houses  and  runs,  overcrowding.  Canker — 
dampness  and  filth.  Diphtheria — roosting  in  draughts,  also  damp 
houses.  Ulcerated  throat — same.  Consumption — neglected 
cold.  Apoplexy,  vertigo  and  epilepsy — overfeeding.  Sore 
eyes — damp  houses.  Costiveness  and  constipation — improper 
food.  Soft  and  swelled  crop — overfeeding.  Indigestion  and 
dyspepsia — same.  Pip — damp  quarters.  Bronchitis — same.  Black 
rot — result  of  indigestion.  Soft-shelled  eggs — overfeeding. 
Gout,  rheumatism  and  cramp — damp  houses.  Leg  weakness — 
inbreeding  and  overfeeding.  Bumble  foot — high  perches.  Scaly 
legs — filthy  and  damp  quarters. 

WHITEWASH. — There  is  no  better  whitewash  for  outside  work 
than  that  used  by  the  United  States  government  for  public  build- 
ings, which  is  made  as  follows :  Take  half  a  bushel  of  unslacked 


94 

lime  and  slack  it  with  boiling  water,  covering  during  the  process 
to  keep  in  steam.  Strain  the  liquid  through  a  fine  sieve  or  strainer, 
and  add  a  peck  of  salt  previously  dissolved  in  warm  water ;  three 
pounds  of  ground  rice  boiled  to  a  thin  paste  and  stirred  in  while 
hot;  half  a  pound  of  Spanish  whiting,  one  pound  of  clean  glue. 
Before  the  glue  is  added  it  should  be  dissolved  in  cold  water  and 
then  brought  to  a  state  where  it  will  flow  freely  by  being  placed 
over  a  slow  fire  in  a  small  pot  set  in  a  larger  one, — the  larger  pot 
being  filled  with  water.  Add  five  gallons  hot  water  to  the  mix- 
ture, stir  well,  and  let  it  stand  a  few  days  where  no  dirt  can  get 
into  it.  Apply  hot.  One  pint  of  this  whitewash  will  cover  one 
square  yard.  Coloring  matter  may  be  added asdesired.  For  cream 
color  add  yellow  ochre ;  for  pearl  or  lead  color  add  lampblack 
or  ivory  black ;  for  fawn  color  add  proportionately  four  pounds  of 
umber  to  one  pound  of  common  Indian  red  and  one  pound  of 
common  lampblack;  for  common  stone  color  add  proportionately 
four  pounds  of  raw  umber  to  two  pounds  lampblack. 

A  FIELD  NEAR  HOME. — The  man  who  does  not  have  the  cap- 
ital to  engage  in  the  business  on  a  large  scale,  or  who  does  not 
feel  competent  to  compete  with  breeders  of  established  reputation, 
may  largely  increase  his  profits  by  imitating  their  methods  within 
a  limited  area.  Farmers  are  waking  up  to  the  importance  of  keep- 
ing thoroughbred  stock.  The,  average  farmer  does  not  feel  that 
he  can  afford  to  pay  $2  or  even  $i  for  a  sitting  of  eggs,  but  he  will 
gladly  pay  50  cents.  The  man  who  introduces  a  new  and  prom- 
ising variety  into  his  neighborhood,  or  who  has  a  strain  of  any 
established  breed  noted  for  egg  production,  can  count  on  a  large 
sale  of  eggs  for  hatching  around  home.  It  is  more  profitable  to 
sell  eggs  to  the  farmers  for  50  cents  a  sitting  than  to  sell  them 
for  double  that  sum  to  customers  out  of  town ;  for  in  the  latter 
case  there  is  the  expense  for  advertising  and  baskets,  the  time 
consumed  in  packing  the  eggs  and  in  correspondence. 

How  TO  BREAK  UP  A  SITTING  HEN. — Don't  be  in  a  hurry 
to  break  up  the  sitting  hen.  She  has  laid  long  and 
well  and  needs  a  vacation  before  she  starts  in  again. 
If  it  is  summer  put  her  out  of  the  house  and  yard  and  let  her 
forage  for  herself  a  few  days.  If  it  is  winter  or  spring,  put  her 
in  a  pen  built  for  broodies,  give  her  a  light  feed  of  mash  for 
breakfast,  nothing  for  dinner,  and  the  same  for  supper.  Give 
her  all  the  water  she  will  drink.  In  a  week  she  will  be  cured 
and  come  back  to  the  flock  with  a  good  appetite,  and  in  another 


95 

week  she  will  begin  to  lay.  The  philosophy  of  this  method  is 
that  the  scanty  ration  makes  the  hen  uneasy  and  she  forgets  her 
desire  for  incubation.  It  won't  hurt  her  to  go  a  little  hungry  for 
a  few  days,  for  if  she  is  in  a  condition  to  sit  she  has  stored  up 
plenty  of  fat  and  it  will  do  her  good  to  consume  some  of  it.  It 
is  a  fact  not  generally  known  that  where  no  nest  eggs  are  used 
and  where  the  eggs  laid  are  gathered  two  or  three  times  a  day, 
hens  are  not  nearly  so  likely  to  get  broody  as  they  are  when  they 
feel  a  clutch  of  eggs  under  them  every  time  they  go  on  the  nest. 

The  two  requisites  of  success  in  the  poultry  business  are 
brains  and  pains. 

The  poultryman  who  expects  winter  eggs  from  immature  or 
stunted  pullets  is  going  to  be  badly  disappointed.  It  requires  good 
food,  good  care  and  a  good  steady  growth  from  shell  to  maturity 
to  develop  winter  layers. 


A  SETTIN'  HEN. 

When  a  hen  is  bound  to  set, 
Seems  as  though  'tain't  etiket 
Dowsin'  her  in  water  till 
She's  connected  with  a  chill. 
Seems  as  though  'twas  skursely  right 
Givin'  her  a  dreadful  fright, 
Tyin'  rags  around  her  tail, 
Poundin'  on  an  old  tin  pail, 
Chasin'  her  around  the  yard. 
— Seems  as  though  'twas  kinder  hard 
Bein'  kicked  and  slammed  and  shooed 
'Cause  she  wants  to  raise  a  brood^ 
I  sh'd  say  it's  gettin'  gay 
Jest  'cause  natur'  wants  its  way, 
— While   ago   my   neighbor,    Penn, 
Started  bustin'  up  a  hen ; 
Went  to  yank  her  off  the  nest, 
Hen,  though,  made  a  peck  and  jest 
Grabbed  his  thumbnail  good  and  stout, 
— Liked  to  yanked  the  darn  thing  out. 
Penn  he  twitched  away  and  then 
Tried  again  to  grab  the  hen. 
But,  by  ginger,  she  had  spunk, 
'Cause  she  took  and  nipped  a  junk 
Big's  a  bean  right  out  his  palm, 
Swallowed  it,  and  cool  and  calm 
Histed  up  and  yelled  "Cah-dah !" 
—Sounded  like  she  said  "Hoo-rah!" 
Wai,  sir,  .when  that  hen  done  that, 
Penn  he  bowed,  took  off  his  hat, 
— Spunk  jest  suits  him,  you  can  bet — 
"Set,"  says  he,  "gol  darn  ye,  SET." 

— Holman  F.  Day  in  Lewiston  Journal. 


INDEX. 


A  PAGE 

lerican   Breeds    Best 42 

B 

it    Sexed    Birds 48 

:eding  for  200  Eggs 56-61 

:ed  from  Best  Birds 57 

>oder,    Care  of 68 

>oder,   Install   One 66 

>oder,    Removing   Chicks   to 67 

>oder,  Secrets  of  Success  with....  68 
>oder  Chicks,  How  Author  Feeds.  .68 
>oder  Chicks,  Another  Man's  Way.  69 


bohydrates 35 

cks  and  Their  Care 66-71 

cks,   Diseases  of 73 

cks,    with    Hens 70 

cks,   When  to  Hatch 71 

)lera    77 

ds   and    Bronchitis 74 

ony    Plan 8 

nmunity   Plan    10 

ony-Community    Plan 14 

p   Bound    /8 

•sses     58 

D 

rrhoea , 74 

eases,    Causes    of 93 

eases,  the  More  Common 72-80 

nking    Water 24 

st    Bath 22 


f    Eating. 79 

f  Foods  and  Tonic 43 

js,   Feeding  for 25-33 

js  in  Fall  and.  Winter 41-45 

j  Production,  Conditions  of 7 

j  Records,  How  Wrecked 6 

f  Type   7 

1  of  200  Egg  Hen* 85-88 

ircise    23 


s    .: 35 

ding,   a   Woman's   Way 33 

:ding,    Caution......! 29 

ding,    Golden   Rule   for 30 

ding,    How    Much * 26 

ding,    Summer   Method 29 

ding,  Variety  Necessary 28 

ding,    Winter    Method 27 

)ds  and  Food  Values 34-4° 


t,   Charcoal  and  Oyster  Shells....  .23 
:en    Food 37 

H 

i  Persuader,  Mr.  Fox's 45 

redity. .  . '. 4 

me  of  200  Egg  Hen. 8-17 

ubation,  Artificial  and  Natural.  61-65 

ubator  or   Hen 62 

ubator,  Get  a  Good  One 63 


K 

Killing  and   Dressing. 


PAGE 
•  85 


Leg    Bands. i 61 

Lice  and  Red   Mites 20 

Liver,  Diseases  of 77 

M 

Male,   Importance  of 58 

Manure,    Poultry. . ., 84 

Mature    Birds,    Breed    from 58 

Moulting    79 

Montana  Experiment   Station  House..  12 

N 

Natural    Hen    Incubator 63 

Non-Layers 6 


Packing    and    Shipping 87 

Piano   Box   Houses 17 

Prize  Method  of  Feeding 44 

Products    and    By-Products 81-85 

Preserving  Eggs,  Methods  of 82-83 

Pullets,    to    Start    Laying 45 

R 

Rats   89 

Rations,    Balanced,    etc 36 

Reproduction,    Conditions   of 47 

Reproduction,   Sex  Element  in 48 

Roup    75 

S 

Salad   and   Dressing 89-95 

Sanitation  in  Egg  Production 18-24 

Scalding    Fowls 87 

Sex  Element  in  Egg  Production.  .  46-51 

Scaly    Legs -. 78 

Shipping   Live   Fowls 88 

Sitting  Hen,   Care  of 64 

Sitting  Hen,  to  Break  Up 94 

Successful   Men — How  Some   Feed...  30 

Summer,    Sanitation  in 24 

Sex,   Law  of 49 

Sex,    Selection    by 49 

Sick    Birds,    Segregate 72 

Sickness,    Beginnings    of 72 

T 

Tables 39-40 

Testing  Eggs    65 

Tonic,    A   Good 79 

Things  to  Bear  in  Mind 37 

Trap  Nest  and  Its  Uses 52-55 

Two  Hundred  Egg  Hen 3-7 

V 

Varieties,   How  Many 5 

Vermin,  to  Rid  House  of 21 

W 

Water    Test 65 

Winter   Eggs    from    Pullets 41 

Winter  Eggs,   Feeding  for 43 

Winter   Eggs,    Not   Fertile 60 

Whitewash,    Government 93 

Y 
Yard,   Poultry 23. 


PARXMD  ROOFING. 

LASTS." 


A  Permanent  Ready  Roofing. 

Adapted  to  Any  Roof  in  All  Climates. 
Requires  No  Repairing,  and  No  Paint  when  First  Laid. 

Does  Not  Require  Skilled  Help  to  Lay. 
COMPLETE  ROOFING  KIT  IN  EACH  ROLL. 


Neponsef  Red  Rope  Roofing. 

Best  low  cost  roofing  and  siding  made*  Standard  among  Farmers 
and  Poultry-men  for  twenty  years*  Keeps  the  building  dry  and  warm. 
PAROID  for  the  roof  and  NEPONSET  for  the  sides  is  the  best 
combination  obtainable* 

UMKKFLHZaWKW  * 

WRITE  US  FOR  SAMPLES  AND  FURTHER  PARTICULARS. 


F\    W.    BIRD 


WRLJPOIJg,    MASS. 

NEW     YORK.  WASHINGTON.  CHICAGO. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


I 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


incub; 

CY 


MAh  14  1935 

t 

i 

1  

i  

I 

i 



3 

E 

> 

LD  21-100m-8,'34  h 
i 

*its-Certain  profit 

certain  satisfaction 

'nal  and  Internatio 

all  other  makes 

.4* 

BROODERS 

Don't  risk  losse< 
you  can  obtain  a  c 
'"'  mothers  for 


Equipped  Incubat 
. 

in  Poultryme 
ers  Chick  Fo« 
Qd,  Scratching  F0< 
•ver,  Mealed  CIov 
y  Houses,   Brc 
Practical  Poul 
Remedies, 


